How We Quit the Forest
by Prince-Mallory
Summary: One night, Melora wanders into suburbia with no memories and a suitcase full of art. She moves into the mansion and befriends Edward. Tension rises in suburbia as she tries to solve the mystery of Edward's creation. Rated M for violence and sex later.
1. Chapter 1

_The Ostrich and the Egret  
Had a very fine flat to let.  
Figurine hutch, no the place wasn't much, but they  
Got a Peacock. _

_He would say what he's gonna do.  
He would say what he wanted to.  
Ostrich and Egret were filled with regret, but the  
Rent's well worth him._

_He felt things that they'd never felt.  
Like the slap of a feather belt.  
So still they sit by a fireplace silent.  
A chill ran through them. _

_Ostrich and Egret and Peacock had very small dreams.  
Thinking of them just reminds me of calendar scenes.  
Nobody's laughing when everyone's weeping, it seems._

_So that's How We Quit the Forest.  
The scene wasn't what it used to be.  
The scene is never what it used to be.  
So, that's How We Quit the Forest. _

----Rasputina, "How We Quit the Forest"

It had seemed like Melora had been trudging through the forest for days. Thankfully the last of her food had not run out, but she was weary and her feet hurt badly.Traveling on foot was harder than she'd thought; her suitcases contained only food and clothing, but now they seemed to weigh a ton on each arm. The forest was immense, she could no longer place where she was, and roots constantly tried to make her lose her footing. Though she knew it must have been more than twenty four hours since she entered the forest, night had never come. In that quiet cathedral of nature, the shadows remained long, the sun refusing to rise to it's zenith or to set fully, whichever it was, dawn or dusk, she could not tell. She tried to remember what the day had looked like when she first set foot in this forest, desperate to escape her problems, but it seemed so long ago that she could not place any details._It doesn't matter though, _thought Melora, _as long as it's away, I don't care what direction I'm headed towards. Nothing could have proved more fatal to my well being than staying in that place._

Here was a lot different than where she started out. When she had fled her old life, the woods of her home were red and gold, at the onset of Autumn. As she walked, the forest seemed to get darker and darker, the trees ashen and grey, their branches steadily growing barer and barer. Dead leaves crunched under her feet, and a bluish-white mist covered the ground. The woods were silent, devoid of bird song or the scampering of animals. Melora's white hair and white dress soaked up the dim light and reflected it strongly, causing her to practically glow in the darkness. She walked as if in a trance, her body too tired to do anything but plod on, but her fear of never finding the end of the woods urged her onwards, as did the cold. At times the heavy silence weighed on her heart, here she was truly alone, the sole inhabitant of those woods. At other times, even though she could not hear anyone or see anything moving, she often swore that she could feel a presence with her. She had slept, briefly, her back against a thin tree, her legs splayed before her and her head turned to the side. The sleep was light, in the half-darkness, and it was then that she could hear an almost subliminal music, haunting the woods with the quiet sound of thunder. She did not sleep often though; for every time she did she felt as if the ground was telling her to simply sink down into the cold earth, to never get up again. And every time she woke up, Melora's restless spirit felt the uneasiness of time wasted in dangerous places.

Finally, Melora came to a clearing in the forest. Before her were gray skies, and what looked to be a blackened, dismal little village. It didn't even warrant the name of a town, so small it was, and so antiquated. It only had one road, and she walked through it, peering in dark windows only to see dusty rooms that contained no furniture. The whole town was silent, abandoned, and falling to ruin.

_ Where am I?_ Wondered Melora. This looked like nothing she was used to back at home; how far had she walked?

She was so tired, every nerve in her body screaming to stop, to lie down for just a few hours, perhaps stay the night in one of the abandoned houses. Melora paused, seriously considering it, but, looking at the woods behind her, decided that the place felt very strange and it would not be wise to stop. She was charged with a mysterious drive to keep moving, as if she were a restless spirit looking for a body to haunt. Nothing felt real to her any more, time seemed to stand still even as she traversed miles of uninhabited country side. Eventually her food ran out, but she was always able to find more----she came across abandoned orchards and filled her bags with apples and pears, stuffing her pockets with peaches. As Melora walked down the dirt road that meandered aimlessly through unfamiliar ashen land, she sometimes came across fields with crops to eat there, though she saw no farms.  
At the beginning of her journey, Melora often had a solid stream of consciousness running through her mind, she had been full of thoughts and fears and excitement. Now, however, Melora felt empty, her legs mechanically placing one foot in front of the other. She did not question that the land she walked through experienced no night, no day, only a dim twilight that lasted forever. She did not question the fact that she never slept, she never stopped walking, and she never saw anyone else on the lonely road.  
Sometimes Melora did seem to sense that other people were there. Maybe she was simply going insane, but she could swear that from time to time she could hear other people's voices, or feel them next to her like shadows passing over water. She never saw anyone though.

At the end of her journey, however, night finally did come. The sudden change in light startled Melora into alertness, and she stared at where the road had taken her. She was standing on the outskirts of a small little town, oddly out of place with the rest of her surroundings. Continuing her walk, she saw that the town was inhabited----the lights in the funny, squat little houses were on, and she could see silhouettes of people moving about within. All the houses were more or less the same, sitting on a square patch of lawn, with large diamonds painted on the garage doors.

_ Is there a place for me here?_ Melora thought, looking about as she walked, noticing the pain in her arms now more than ever. This place...looked very much like where she had run away from in the first place. Where had her feet taken her? Had she managed to simply walk in a circle?

No, she decided after walking for a time. This was not the same place. It simply looked remarkably similar.

Melora was seriously considering knocking on a door, when she saw something that immediately put to rest any ideas of staying in that little town. Before her, rising in the distance, was a mountain, and on _top _of that mountain...

Melora's eyes widened. She could stay no other place than there. She would plead and beg the owner until they let her in. When one sees the dream they have dreamt all their lives, one can do nothing to resist it.

Walking quickly, the suburban houses ended at a little cul-de-sac bordered by dense flora. Melora's heart skipped a beat. It was night time, and she was reluctant to enter again such foreboding woods, but she steeled herself, reminding her that this was the last leg of her journey, that she would reach the top of that mountain no matter what.  
It would be half an hour of trudging over a very over grown path, unsticking her torn dress from the brambles, and more than once removing a sharp stone from her boots, before she finally stood before the most beautiful house she'd ever seen. It was immense, darkened with age, and was more of a castle than anything else. She frowned a bit. It was also falling a part in places. Did no one live here?

But that wasn't possible; the house might have been going to ruins, but the _garden_ looked like it was tended to every day! Walking cautiously, Melora made her way through the immense lawn, gasping in awe at the carved horticulture. About her grew giant dragons, ballerinas, and—in the very center–an enormous hand, reaching up to cradle the sky; all pruned from green bushes. Who could have done this?

She knocked on the door, hearing the sound echo within, but no one answered. Too tired to care for the consequences, Melora pushed open the door. Within the mansion all was dark and covered in a layer of dust. Perhaps it was ominous, but compared to the places Melora had traveled through, the air was quiet and devoid of ghost's whispers, and she felt as if she could finally rest her weary feet. Wandering about on the first floor, she found a large couch and lay down on it, quickly falling asleep.

* * *

It would be several hours before the man in the attic summoned the courage to leave his room and walk to the top of the stairs. Being silent, he rested his palms against the railing, being careful not to clang against it. Directly below him lay the stranger whom he'd seen walking up the path, looking more weary and tired than anyone he'd ever seen in his existence. Now he gazed at her with mixed emotions. He had not seen another living being for quite some time now, so long in fact that he could not even count the years. Yet he knew what people who came from the village below brought—unhappiness, in a word. He looked closer. Her clothes were not like the others. And she looked dirty; the hem of her white skirt was wet looking and brown. It was full of holes. Her hair was stuck with leaves; her black and white socks were torn, her boots were caked with mud. Had she really come from the village? Her hair was white and was knotty enough to make little rope-like strands. Some of them were braided, and they were all pulled into two sloppy buns on the sides of her head, right above her ears. Her skin was pale but not anemic; and had freckles on the shoulders and across her upturned nose. Her eyebrows were thin, and there was a small but pronounced mole on the left side of her upper lip. Her shirt was tattered and only stayed up by the force of a few ragged strips of cloth around her arms. She was short enough that her whole body fit on the medium sized couch with room to spare, but her legs were not stocky–they were slender. Her boots lay on the floor, her toes still in their socks. The man observed all of this without comment, it was in his nature to observe and to remember everything. He saw...art...in this new being, a very big potential for art, but for now he withdrew. In all honesty, he hoped she would leave. People from below only brought pain, and he was not prepared to try to socialize with more of them. 

_Disclaimer: Edward doesn't belong to me; I think he's Tim Burton's. Don't sue me. Melora is MINE. _


	2. Chapter 2

New chapter up. No reviews yet, but that's never discouraged me, especially for one with an original character. More Edward this time, I promise. If you feel inclined, please leave a review. Constructive criticism helps me to improve, and so is beneficial to you as the reader. Also general encouragement helps let me know I'm not the only one who enjoys this piece!

Usual disclaimers apply, Edward and that hideous abomination called Suburbia is copyright Tim Burton. Everything else, though, is mine.

_Once upon a time  
a man was created  
assembled in his prime  
undying yet ill-fated  
his master's unfinished plans,  
his life's work abandoned  
the substitute proved permanent  
left with only scissors for hands. _

_Lonely in my castle  
hours bathed in silence  
still I find it facile  
whiling in innocence  
to take joy in simple things  
a burst of movement, a careful snip  
what elation, what fervor it brings  
Till suddenly I am finished,  
with many a scar on my lip. _

_One day, I left my house on the hill  
and moved into the town below.  
I wanted people to like me,  
and found ways to help out  
I even fell in love once  
but that didn't work out too well. _

"_I must go," thought he,_  
"_Away from here, I'll run,  
Stay I won't, and return I'll not  
for clearly I'm not welcome."  
So back he went to his mansion  
and was alone for years to come. _

---- Prince Mallory

Melora woke in the afternoon, the light filtering through the cracked roof. Sitting up on the couch, she stretched her aching muscles and looked around. The room was much larger than she had thought; and was filled with curious machinery. Still, the place wasn't much lived in, she could tell...

"What's first?" Melora began. "I'd say, breakfast was first. But what is there to eat here? Nothing, I'll bet. I've no money to spend on food, not when I still have a few apples in my pocket. I should be wiser with my spending, from now on." Melora sighed and reached into her pinafore, taking out the bright red apple that she'd plucked from an orchard. Gazing at it for a moment, she wondered how long it would be before she could start eating anything besides apples, pears and peaches.

Opening one of her suitcases, she pulled out a spiral bound notebook. She'd purchased it for school, and so it was blank. Melora would put it to better use now. Taking out a pen and biting into her apple, she began to make a list:

What is to be done?

Firstly, unpack your things in what's going to be your room.

Secondly, find some water and bathe yourself some. You look awful.

Thirdly, go into town, and inquire, among other things, if there is a position to be filled for a job. If you need to, eat at the cheapest place possible, but don't depend on that for too long. Start saving for some vegetable seeds, and an indoor soil tray.

Fourthly, come back up to the house and examine it for anything like running water and a stove. I can't imagine there would be such a thing here, but who knows?

And Fifthly, when everything else is done, the least you can do is find a broom to sweep, or maybe arrange things a bit. No sense living in filth if you can avoid it.

Now go on, you've got lots to do.

Melora snapped the notebook shut and tugged on her boots, having consumed all parts of her apple. Was there a bedroom in this house? Hmm...Melora stood up, looking about the room. She saw, behind what looked like a series of tables with conveyor belts on them, a door. She made her way across the room and opened it, hoping she wouldn't find anything scary like a dead body or really old food. Instead she found a very dark room, and what did she see in that room but a bed!

Melora held her enthusiasm in check, however. She was wary of sleeping in strange beds, and had a bad feeling about this one. The covers were thrown back, a robe tossed over the bannister, slippers lying haphazardly on the floor—no, this would not do at all. She would never get any sleep in a bed that–despite being moth-eaten, yellowed with age, and covered in dust and cobwebs—looked as if it's owner were going to return to it at the end of the day. She did not know what happened to the owners of this house, but whoever they were they must have fled in a great hurry, to forget their slippers.

Shutting the door quietly behind her, she opted to simply use the couch until she could save up for a mattress. Melora was prepared to live in poverty, even if it meant years of it.

"Then what?" Melora said, simply to frighten away the silence. This house was awfully quiet and lonely...

"You're to wash yourself. That's what comes next. But water? I know! A restroom. In town. That's where I shall go anyways, to find a job. And I can take some clean clothes with me as well." Finding her best dress and socks from her suitcase, and tucking a brush into her pocket, she pushed the door open and made her way down the long path back into town.

It was nearing nine o'clock in the evening when Melora emerged from the pizzeria and began to walk dejectedly back home. The day had gone terribly. She had earned several stares as she made her way, on foot, to the center of town where all the stores were. That had taken much of the day, so that she was twice as filthy when she finally found a public restroom to wash her face, neck and hands in the sink, brush her hair and finally change clothes. Melora came out feeling quite refreshed, if still very hungry. She'd found a place selling videos sporting a "help wanted" sign, and said that she wanted to help—but the form they handed her had questions on it that she could not answer; such as her address and social security number (after all, she doubted even her family back home knew it). Not knowing what to do, she left. Most of the businesses were not looking for help, so Melora decided to at least eat some hot food, finally. The pizza filled her stomach wonderfully, it was the highlight of her day, but she felt the whole time as if being scrutinized by everyone else in the restaurant.

After walking a mile towards the mansion, Melora sat down for a bit to rest her feet. She was sitting in front of one of those ugly little pastel houses, and wondered if the people inside were staring at her too. It wasn't long, however, before a car pulled into the driveway. Melora got up to leave, but a voice called out to her.

"Wait!" Melora turned around. A woman was climbing out of the car. She was wearing a baby blue work ensemble, with a little cap resting on her head. "My name is Betsy Ashton. I hope you don't mind my asking, but, are you the newcomer in town?"

Melora answered honestly, "Yes, I must be." She wasn't that surprised how fast news traveled here; she did stick out.

"Where are you living now?"

"In the mansion on the hill."

Mrs. Ashton faltered. "I...I don't understand. That place was never for sale..."

Melora felt antsy. "It's abandoned though, isn't it?" She asked hopefully.

"Oh, yes, yes, no doubt about that, quite empty." Mrs. Ashton brightened a bit. Then she looked closer at Melora. "How old are you, dear?"

"Sixteen and a half."

"Oh. Where are your parents?"

"...I don't have any. I'm alone here."

Instantly Mrs. Ashton's face fell, her expression a mixture of shock and pity. "Well...well, where did you live before you came here? If you don't mind..."

"I lived...away from here." Melora gave her the name of a town, but Mrs. Ashton did not recognize it.

"Do you have any relatives in town? At all?"

"No."

"Do you have a job, sweetie?"

"No..."

"...Does that place up there have stuff like power and running water?"

"I don't think so, ma'am."

Mrs. Ashton frowned and thought for a long moment. "Ah, well, you know, I live right here, and it would be a shame for you to live all by yourself up there in that old place, why don't you just...come with me, and I can help you figure out what to do, ok?" She smiled and nodded her head briskly.

Melora looked back to the mansion, now just a dark silhouette against the indigo sky. Looking at Mrs. Ashton's maternal smile, Melora almost wish she could be back home again with her parents, but knew it was too late for that. She supposed that her things would be alright as long as they stayed dry in the mansion...

"Alright."

When all had been perfectly silent for several hours, Edward got up from his spot in the darkest corner of the attic and haltingly walked to the door. He pushed it open with one long blade and quietly made his way down the stairs. Looking timidly about, he saw that the living room was devoid of the stranger. The room was dark in the evening, the pale light of the moon filtering through smashed windows to glint dangerously off of his 'hands', a mess of long, dismembered, iron and steel scissor blades that were as much a part of him as the skin of his face. Snipping them nervously, Edward walked stiffly towards the couch, where she had slept the night. At the foot of the couch were two suitcases; one of them had been left open. Curiosity getting the better of himself, Edward extended a blade and examined the contents of the case.

On the very top was a photograph. Edward suddenly remembered the last photographs he'd seen, over seventy years ago. Their memory still strong, especially that of a certain strawberry blonde beauty, Edward paused for a moment, soaking up the rare vivid flash of that encounter. Then he examined the photograph before him.

In it, a girl stood next to a boy. The girl was dressed in pale colors, and he recognized her as the stranger. The boy was much taller than her, and wore a red shirt and plaid vest. There was nothing remarkable about the photo, except that the boy looked cheerful. Edward thought for a moment. There was nothing as far as physical resemblances went, but the boy reminded him of...of someone who hated him, a long time ago. A man who Edward had not hated; hatred was a hard emotion for him; but a man whom he had grown very tired of in the end. Edward closed his eyes against the memory. So many painful memories...

Looking at the girl once more, Edward contemplated her. He was aware of a feeling, deep within his clockwork mind, that he often had when he viewed a bush that was begging to be 'pruned', or a block of ice. It was that feeling of seeing art, the potential for it, that spark of creativity that demanded to be recognized. Yet in this girl it was not so much that the art was hidden within her; rather, he could see it waiting just beneath the surface; as if she were a finished piece, resplendent in her beauty, but was being covered up by the noisy thoughts and words and colors of her surroundings. The inhabitants of Suburbia never understood, even if Edward had tried to explain to them, they would have simply thought up ways to use him for it. Now Edward did not need to explain his feelings to himself; he simply felt them, as feelings were meant to be.

Pushing aside the photograph, Edward lightly traced his blades over the surface of a piece of paper; it was covered in colorful paint and strange designs. Here and there Edward recognized an eye or an ear, but the lines were so dense and the subject so completely unfamiliar to him that he could not begin to guess what was going on there. Yet here it was again, that feeling of art, hidden under a thin layer of other people's expectations and judgements. It was as if he could feel her past situation clouding over his own. Carefully lifting a few more sheets of paper, he saw it was more of her artwork; every one of them different and yet they all seemed to contain something the same; an element of repression and melancholy.

Too afraid to explore further without damage to the contents of the suitcase, Edward withdrew his scissor hand and stood up straight. Would she be coming back? In truth, a part of him hoped desperately that she would return. Seventy years of loneliness, even for someone who isn't that accustomed to public speaking (or speaking at all, really), can wear down on a person's soul. Even if all she ever did was watch him prune the bushes outside, he'd still prefer that to doing it alone. Loneliness and he were very well acquainted, but he felt that seeing new people might be nice for a change.

Of course, that was only a small part of him. There was a very big part of him who was terrified of the prospect of her return. What if she brought other people with her? What if they didn't like him? It didn't matter, actually, whether they liked him or not. He would never be one of the people of the place below, and they would never learn to accept him fully as he was. All any interaction with them would bring was pain and suffering. Even if she only came by herself, he didn't know if he could bear to grow attached to someone again and then have them tell him that they couldn't possibly stay.

With that thought, Edward withdrew into the darkness of the mansion, away from the moonlight, climbing the staircase slowly and carefully until he reached his room at the top. There he stood before the great splintered hole in the ceiling, snipping quietly to himself, and watching the small cul-de-sac below for any signs of her.


	3. Chapter 3

1"I'm made of hair and bone and little teeth

I think I cannot speak

I come on like a crippled plaything

My spine is just a string

I wrapped our love in all this foil

Silver tight like spider legs

I never wanted it to ever spoil

But flies will lay their eggs"

Tourniquet, by Rasputina

A/n: Sorry for the long absence between updates, a lot of things have been going on. Not that it matters, I don't think anyone reads this thing anyways, but I do it for myself as much as I do it for others...I would like to hear any constructive criticism anybody might have, if they do happen to stumble on this.

Please be patient, there'll be lots of Edward in the next chapter, I swear!

Life with the Ashton's was awkward at first. Melora was unused to surroundings this well furnished. The house smelled strange to her—a plastic smell, coupled with the smell of ashes (the cigarettes that Mr. Ashton smoked) and the sweet, sticky smell of air freshener. She slept on the pullout bed in the living room, and woke up every day to Mrs. Ashton cooking breakfast.

The Ashtons were not overly rich, nor were they even close to poor; they were middle class. They had two children, a boy of eighteen, and a girl of ten. Mike's interests were math, writing, and track. Mike hated getting his hands dirty with things like ink, glue, or paint, he disliked wrinkled clothing, and, rather unfortunately for Melora, he hated the feel of velvet and was socially allergic to visual artists. He was attractive, in a lanky, boyish sort of way, and when he first realized that his mother had brought in a homeless person to stay with them, he looked rather put upon.

Margo's reaction had been different. She saw Melora as a new playmate, someone else to share her Barbies with. Margo was much more openly social than her elder brother, and invited all of her little friends over to question Melora about her past.

Mrs. Ashton had given Melora some of her old dresses to wear, gently saying that her clothes were tattered and stained and wouldn't be as comfortable. Melora reluctantly let Mrs. Ashton throw away her old dress, but she kept the stockings and pantaloons to wear under the pale new skirts and blouses.

Melora wasn't sure about her place in the Ashton household.

"So, Melora, what did you do before you came to these parts?" Mr. Ashton asked her from across the dining room table.

Melora had been drawing swirls in her mashed potatoes, adding peas for effect. It was a few minutes before she realized that she'd been asked a question. Looking up from her plate and meeting the expectant gazes of her new family, she tried to sort out some sort of an answer.

"Oh. Well. I ate the apples from orchards. And I walked for quite a while."

"Mom, what's an orchard?" Margo asked.

"It's a place where fruit trees grow, sweetie, way out from here." Mrs. Ashton said.

"But you must have had some sort of family, didn't you?" Mike said.

Melora sat very still. For a moment reality melted away, was carried up in birds wings, and all she could see was paint and compressed oil, spiraling around her in a blur of emotions, memories, feelings.

"No...not really..." She said distantly, unfocusedly. Mike noticed the strange shift in Melora's attention, but said nothing more. His parents continued without pausing.

"Do you have any plans for the future? Any sort of education?" Mr. Ashton asked.

Melora was brought back to focus. "Plans? I...I was hoping I could get a job, you know, save up, I wouldn't have to impose on you any longer than I had to, and maybe find a place of my own to live. The house on the hill seems rather nice. I had planned on staying there, but I realize now it would be very hard to do that unless I had had the money to buy furnishings for it."

"That house is haunted." Margo said.

"It is not. It's just run down and ugly." Mike said, giving his sister a look.

"Well I'm sure we can find a job for you. What do you think, Harold?" Mrs. Ashton said, optimism shining from her.

"No doubt about that. I'll take you down to the video store and see if they'll hire you. From there, I'm sure you'll be able to save up enough to eventually find a place of your own."

"Yes, I would like that." Melora said, smiling.

"What grade are you in?" Mike asked.

Melora stared at Mike, not knowing at first what to say. "I...I don't go to school anymore."

"How old are you, then?"

"Ah, um, sixteen? Maybe seventeen? Gosh, I could be eighteen."

Mike looked incredulous. "How can you not know how old you are?"

Melora frowned. "I've got more important things to think about. Besides, what does it matter? I don't go to school...I finished school, I think."

So were the typical answers that Melora would give to Mike's weird questions. Melora, now clean and somewhat more groomed, with a respectable adult known in the community to escort her, easily got the job at the video store. The pay wasn't much, and it seemed like it would take years before Melora had enough money to move out, but the Ashtons promised they would help her think of something.

The first thing that Melora bought with her money was not food, since she ate with the Ashtons, and it was not furniture for the house on the hill, and it wasn't new clothes ('after all, the clothes I have cover my body well enough, and once I get more comfortable here I can always sew new dresses"), it was a scooter. Melora had considered a bicycle, which was what she was more used to. But when she went down to the shop to see what they had, she tried out the scooter first and found she loved the feeling of standing up while moving quickly down the street. Granted it wasn't as fast as a bicycle, but it got her where she wanted to go, and she felt so free and liberated, her dress flapping in the wind and her hair let loose to whip about her face.

Having a job gave a sense of order where previously there had been none. Early in the morning, Melora would rise and brush her teeth. Then she would put on her woolen socks, her little lace up shoes with buttons up the sides, and pull on one of the dresses that Mrs. Ashton had given her. She didn't keep up with brushing her hair, which snarled and dreaded easily, so instead of having it hang over her shoulders, she gathered it into two buns on either sides of her head, securing them with green ribbon from Mrs. Ashton's sewing cabinet.

Melora would walk outside every morning and wheel out her used, sky-blue scooter out onto the sidewalk. Then, with a push of her foot, she was sailing down towards the shopping center. Children on their way to school would see her and stare, or wave, or make faces. Melora waved to all of them. Twenty minutes later she would arrive at the store, park her scooter behind the building, and help customers find what they wanted. Melora could remember watching a lot of movies as a child, and, clutching to this memory, she would become very excited with helping the locals find any particular video. At the end of the day she would help clean the shop up, and would entertain herself by dancing with the broom and singing softly as she swept up and down the aisles. Her manager liked her, but her lack of past made him slightly nervous about keeping her on the job.

It would be a week before Melora suspected that she was going insane. On her way out of the store one evening, she heard a voice. It was a warbley, throaty sort of voice, that chuckled and gave unsolicited opinions often. Melora looked up and down the boardwalk, but no one was talking to her. Then she realized that there was a pigeon looking directly at her (that is, with its eye cocked towards her) from the hood of the Cadillac parked in front of her.

"...the pigeons are talking." Melora mumbled. "The pigeons are talking to me. Oh god."

"Well it's just me 'ere. No pig_eons_ about it. Huh-huh. Gots any food on yeh?"

"The pigeon is talking to me. What is _wrong_ with me!" Melora put the hand that wasn't balancing her scooter to her forehead.

"You look like you ahvent brushed your 'air in all you life. Food, food? Gots any food on yeh? Come on, you biddies always gots some food on you. Give 'ere, do you good, eh?"

Melora considered a number of options available to her. She could scream, yes, or take her scooter and run, or just pretend like nothing unusual was going on. Before she could walk away, however, a second pigeon landed beside the first.

"Wots this. Eh? You trying to get this ere biddie give you some grub? Forget it, mate, you aint no dog wit them sad eyes. Filthy pigeons, Jack, filthy pigeons get nothin out of biddies. Brrhm." It cleared its throat and shook its feathers.

"I was jest tellin her about how awful her 'air looks. Brrhm!" The first pigeon cleared its throat as well. "Though I could be wrong, mate, but I think chickie 'ere is listenin'."

"You don't say, mate, you don't say." The second pigeon turned to look at Melora, who's hands were shaking. Her eyes were unfocused. Suddenly she snapped her hands shut over the pigeon. It gave a squawk, and Melora pressed her hands tightly together. When she opened them, she gave a little scream. There between her palms lay a hundred little grey buttons.

"Something's wrong with this place. _I'm _wrong with this place...I...I have to go..." Melora felt tears roll down her cheeks. She felt something in her chest give way, but could not understand her feelings. The pigeons were talking. The pigeons were not pigeons, but handfuls of buttons. Melora sped away, pushing the ground beneath her scooter.

The neighborhood came towards her and vanished behind her as she made her way home. Her skin felt alive with insects; her eyes searched for something safe to focus on. Things had been easy to ignore before she came here. The journey here had been made in a dream, things were taken without question, whispers on empty roads were no matter to a traveling dreamer. Melora thought she'd found something concrete and real when she came here, but now she couldn't tell if the world was coming apart at the seams, or if she was.

Should the talking pigeons have bothered her so much? Could she have imagined it? But _why_ would she have imagined such a thing? She had played make believe much of her life, but could it ever slip out of her control?

Zooming down the night sidewalk with no one to see her, Melora certainly felt as if she wasn't safe, and in her mind she could feel her world melting. _A safe place. A safe place, I must go..._There was a general sense of traveling upwards, in a spiral, trees coming towards her and then away. She was moving in the woods, and she knew she should feel afraid, but in the nightmare that had possessed her evening, Melora didn't distinguish landscape from landscape. She felt unsafe, and wouldn't stop moving until she felt safe again.

At last she found her ending point. Melora once again stood in the garden, which was so beautiful and calm in the starlight. Melora felt her heart beat slow down, and she let her scooter fall quietly in the grass as she walked forward, breathing in the clean air and feeling a sense of security. She let her two sloppy buns fall, her white hair gathering up the light as they fell around her shoulders. Making her way to the hedge, Melora parted the leaves at the edge of the garden and looked down at the world below, and she saw it melt and explode like oil paint over a canvas.

_Being crazy sure is pretty. _Melora smiled. The stars roared in an ocean of black velvet, and the town was a riot of glowing greens, yellows, and blues. Everything was suddenly alive, vital and primal, constantly moving. As Melora watched, the writhing colors almost looked like maggots to her. It didn't frighten her. Maybe the world was still insane, or maybe she was just ill in the mind, but standing there in the garden, she felt like she could take on whatever the world handed her.

_I want to stay here so bad. This is such a beautiful place, even if the house itself is in ruins. I want to find the gardener of this place and thank him for making such a sanctuary. _Melora thought. Then her face fell. _I have to get back, though. The Ashtons will be missing me. But I'll come back, and one day, I'll live here. _

Edward walked away from the gaping hole in the ceiling a few hours later, giving up on the chance of the girl reappearing. He sat down on the creaky mattress, feeling the gears in his joints complain slightly. He balanced his wrists on his knees, his scissors snipping at the lonely silence. The shadows fell about him, away from the nocturnal light let in from the 'window'. It had been nearly a week since she first came there, looking much dirtier and lost. Why hadn't she taken her things with her? They still waited for her on the couch downstairs. It made him uncomfortable. No person, save the one who gave him a life of sorts, had left traces. The suitcase on the couch was another memory, another collection of feelings and experiences, that crowded Edward's small universe and competed for his attention. His creator had been a father, someone who had every right to surround a son with his presence. The suitcase was off, too colorful, too alien.

Edward had spent the last weeks pruning the garden as usual, but now he only ventured out at night. His suit was dark enough, he knew, that should she return then he could hide easily in the shadows, away from the stars if he could, for even in the nighttime his buckles and studs twinkled in the darkness. To go out in the daylight was dangerous. Yet...

Edward's eyes turned towards the floorboards. He was lonely. It was not yet winter, when he could throw himself into his ice sculpting, the snicker-snack of his blades and the furious movements of his arms drowning out any feelings of heart-ache or sadness. How long had he been here since the roof almost caved in, how many years had passed since he saw her white dress stained with blood? Had it been so long?

Edward had learned many lessons from his creator, how men who wore crepe clothes tore but kept a beautiful shape, how one is to treat one's guests during tea, how to grow plants, a dim memory of how to behave in a lady's presence. These lessons, Edward supposed, served to pass the time as he slowly came together in the laboratory, and some of them proved useful later on.

However. Perhaps the lesson that left the strongest impression was the last his creator had to teach. Edward lifted his head to gaze out once more at the window to the outside world. Here he had stayed, denying himself any sort of contact with the people in their villages below. He would remain, he supposed, indefinitely; this was the difference between he and that which created him. His creator had been frail when he brought Edward into existence; Edward watched him grow frailer and frailer as time passed, in a way that Edward would never experience. His creator, lying on the floor, unmoving, with wax shards of what would have been the final piece of his creation, served to teach Edward the greatest lesson of all: impermanence. True, he had seen such things in the beds of his garden, when flowers withered and slept under the snow; but they came back again. His creator did not. Edward then learned the impermanence of human beings who were born of a mother, instead of from the guts of another machine. Given enough time, all humans would wither and die. How long was it since she had left him, returning to her life in the village below? Something in Edward knew that it had been a very, very long time. Had all that he'd ever loved about life outside of this place crumbled to dust? It was probably so. Humans didn't even have to wait that long; Edward had experienced first hand how easy it was to cut a human being's life short.

Killing had been a strange experience. It was 'wrong,' but at the time, there wasn't anything more natural. Edward wondered if he would ever have to do it again. He hoped not. And as long as no one came here, he wouldn't have to find out.

Something bright flashed at the corner of his vision. Edward stood up and haltingly made his way to the window. He couldn't remember how long it had been since the girl had left the garden, but something in her visit had disturbed things outside. Not in his garden, which remained peaceful as ever, but in the town below. The vision was brief, but extraordinary. The stars shone brighter than ever, as the sky around them rippled and rolled in waves, like an ocean above him. The town itself ran together and then fragmented, the colors separating and swirling lazily. Edward had never seen the paintings in his creator's art books, because he could not turn the pages himself, but had he known the works of monet and van gogh, he would have recognized the scene below him. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the vision was gone, and everything was as it had been.

Things may have been strange for Melora, but it didn't stop her from getting up every morning to go to work. After a while, she learned to accept her visions; even if it bothered her that no one else could see or hear what she was seeing.

_Perhaps I shall die, if these visions are a warning of trauma to my brains. Hopefully I will die after I have moved out. _Melora would think to herself whenever she would spy pigeons strutting up and down outside the shop.

One evening, Melora came home to find Margo throwing a tantrum.

"What's wrong, Margo?" Melora asked in surprise.

"Mom and Dad wont let me watch TV for more than an hour on weekends!" Margo shouted. She was crying and stomping as hard as she could around her room.

"T.V.?" Melora said, feeling the word roll in her mouth. She hadn't watched TV in a while. She couldn't imagine being this upset over such a trivial thing. Then Melora remembered that to a ten year old, some things could encompass their whole lives quite easily. Still, Melora thought, ten year olds were a bit past temper tantrums, weren't they?

Melora watched Margo cry for a little while longer. Abruptly, Melora said:

"Stop that, right now."

Margo fell silent, looking at Melora in shock. No one besides her parents had ever actually told her to stop doing something. Out of curiosity, Margo waited to see what Melora had to say. Melora sighed, and said:

"Your parents just basically gave you a huge freedom, the freedom from sitting in front of a box, wasting away while your media tells you what you should consider important. Instead of running outside, climbing trees, raising caterpillars, you stomp around in your room crying for something you can't hope to change. It's as if you want to waste precious hours of your childhood on something that you won't remember a week from now."

Margo obviously looked hurt. Her eyes watered; she wanted sympathy, not harsh words. She looked away, trying now to let Melora see how depressed she was, because she knew that Melora's words were true. Melora saw this, and instantly softened. She walked over to Margo, bending down and putting her arms around the girl. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I understand that you're upset and disappointed, and it's ok. It's ok." She hummed soothingly. Margo cried a little, forgetting to be embarrassed; inside, Margo knew she was behaving immaturely, but didn't know how to act her age. She was grateful that Melora understood, and was able to show sympathy.

After a while, Melora eased up and faced Margo. "There are so many fun things to do when one is not watching TV. It's too late in the evening to go outside now, but would you like to get out your paper and crayons? I can show you how to make something fun."

For the next three hours Melora sat on the floor of Margo's room, and they both made Native American headbands, gluing sequins to them and drawing different patterns on them. As they did this, they made up Indian 'names' and personalities for themselves. Margo was Princess Ladybug, and Melora was Queen Tiger Lily. It was in these personas, and in the headbands they made for themselves, that they ventured out that Saturday to explore. Melora made a walking stick for herself from a long branch and a few pine cones for decoration. Walking down the sidewalk, Melora saw the world shift and melt away before her. Princess Ladybug walked before her, clad in doeskin robes, her hair braided with feathers. Their moccasins silenced their steps as they kept a watch for territorial colonists.

Since there were no actual bodies of water nearby, they knelt on the lawn and saw themselves sitting proud in a canoe; together they rowed down the Susquehannoc in search of food and adventure.

They stayed outside the whole day, playing only by themselves, content for now simply to explore their individual characters. Margo didn't even care about her one hour of TV; they played right until sunset.

It would be a month before Melora had earned enough money to purchase a bed for the house on the hill. It was a very small, very utilitarian bed. It was all she could afford, and it was all she could manage to transport by herself. She'd rented a dolly from the hardware store and then hefted the yet unassembled box frame and mattress onto it. It was a long walk from town to the house on the hill, but Melora had the whole day to herself. She was very excited, it being her first real step into independence. She would need other things, of course, drapes, blankets, electricity, (though she supposed she could live off of candles in the summer...) And she would have to see about running water and the making of a studio for herself. Obviously, there had to be gardening tools near by, what with such a beautiful garden, and perhaps she could persuade the gardener to lend her some space in the back for a vegetable garden. All she would really have to continue purchasing would be art supplies, fabric to make new clothes, and whatever food she couldn't grow herself.

It was approaching the evening when Melora found herself before the wrought iron gates. She was sweating profusely; pushing a dolly laden with furniture uphill on an unpaved road was no walk in the park. Melora quietly congratulated herself for getting that far, and for having the thriftyness to buy the smallest, lightest bed. She went before the gates and swung them open, pushing the dolly along. Melora also remembered that she'd left a suitcase of clothes and art things on the couch inside, and told herself not to forget about it on her way back.

Melora pushed open the double doors to the house and took a matchbox from her pocket. Her memory had proved right; there were indeed candles adorning the walls of the main room. The match cracked against the board, and light the darkness with a single flame. As Melora lit each of the candles on the walls, the darkness drew back a little more. She frowned. It was still pretty dim, but it was enough to read by. Grunting, Melora went back and shoved the dolly through the threshold and into the main room. To her right was a fragile looking staircase. _I can't really think of setting up the bed in the main room, I guess I'll have to lug this stuff upstairs..._Sighing mightily, Melora took hold of the box by its plastic handle, and slowly dragged it to the foot of the stairs. From there she inched her way up the staircase, groaning as the box pulled her arms further and further out of her sockets. After what seemed an eternity, Melora reached the top, and then stopped to light the candles of the second floor corridor. Wiping the sweat from her brow, Melora resumed, pulling the box along the dusty checkerboard floor, sneezing in the dust. _Remind me later to get some cleaning supplies as well!_

Melora selected a room on the second floor to be her bedroom. She pushed open the door, and gasped. The room was large, with a huge fireplace in it, and a window overlooking the wilderness behind the mansion. There was a tarnished mirror over the fireplace, and on the mantle were several things: a large candelabra, which Melora lit to see the room clearly, several picture frames in which were ancient daguerreotype. Melora leaned over the hearth to view the pictures better; beneath a layer of dust she could see men and women in clothing from ages past. The women all looked either sad or neurotic, the latter with their hair down and their eyes so wide they shone even in the dim lighting. There was one man who attracted her attention, and Melora took the frame off the mantle very carefully.

The man looked about twenty two, with pale skin and dark eyes. His eyebrows were broad and level, and his face took on the most sincere, steadfast look. His black hair was parted to the side, and long for the time, curving around his ears. He was dressed smartly for his time, with a pinstriped waistcoat and pocket watch, and an evening jacket with white kid gloves. Melora thought he was very beautiful.

Shaking herself from her contemplation, Melora reverently placed the picture back on the mantle. There were other items there, but Melora needed to build the box frame first. Ripping open the cardboard box hastily, she lay all the pieces out one by one and examined them. It didn't look hard; all the screws came in a little packet, and the wooden panels were easily matched up. After a half hour laboring in the dim light, Melora had her box frame assembled.

_Now all I have to do is lug the mattress up here. _Retracting her steps, Melora made her way back to the bottom of the stairs, where the dolly was waiting patiently for her. The mattress had small cloth handles on the sides, thankfully, and Melora set to work lifting it up the stairs. As she went, she sang a song to keep herself company:

"Silvy, Silvy, all on one day,

She dressed herself in man's array,

A sword and pistol all by her side,

To meet her true love she did ride.

She met her true love all in the plain,

'Stand and deliver, kind sir,' she said,

'Stand and deliver, kind sir,' said she,

Or else this moment you shall die.'"

Melora had finished the last line as she reached the door to her new bedroom. Heaving the mattress into the box frame, she dusted off her hands and admired her handiwork. Now all she needed were some curtains, blankets, sheets, and a good thorough dusting. Smiling to herself, Melora blew out the candles. As she did, she caught a shadow move in the tarnished reflection of the mirror, and she spun around. Cautiously, Melora crept through the doorway. She turned her face to the left and screamed; a pale face reeled back in alarm, and Melora bolted down the corridor, shrieking frantically. Into the night she ran, not caring to take her suitcase or her dolly with her as she sped towards the Ashtons.


	4. Chapter 4

1"When you spend your whole life

Building stone castles

When the walls start to crumble

Exposed to the world

When the wind burns my face

And the smoke burns my eyes

I can't ever cry

I can't ever cry

You gotta help . . .

To make me somebody

You gotta help . . .

To open my eyes"

Oingo Boingo, "Help Me"

Melora woke up in time to go to work that Monday morning. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she recalled the events of the previous night. Melora strained to remember the face she had seen as she pulled on a shirt and a pair of bloomers. The idea of it didn't really frighten her anymore, she now only felt a sense of excitement. Who could it have been? The gardener, perhaps? Surely not some descendant of the previous owners!

All throughout work, Melora felt distracted. Not even the talking pigeons could bother her. The person had looked much more frightened of her than she of him. And she had only seen his face in the darkness—that seemed bizarre, even such low light, she should have been able to see more than that. The day seemed to drag on and on, the entire time Melora glancing out the window or at the clock to count the minutes till closing.

Finally it came that she was able to close up the store and make her way towards the house on the hill. Melora's heart beat heavily in her chest; would he still be there? In truth, he'd appeared more frightened of her than she of him. It was a long way to walk, but the time was cut in half on her scooter. Briefly she stopped by the Ashton's to let them know that she wouldn't be home for supper, and they did not question her wherabouts.

It would be almost nine p.m. when finally Melora pushed open the heavy gates and entered the house. Within all was still. She fumbled with the matches and eventually lit the candles on the wall. The old couch remained, and there was her suitcase, untouched it seemed. Cobwebs crackled in the flames, and shadows played over the bizarre machinery against one wall. To the left, a dark and neglected kitchen, to the right, the staircase. Melora swallowed her fear and began her ascent.

"Hello?" She called out, her voice ringing along the empty hallway. "I'm Melora, I didn't mean to scare you last night. Won't you come out and say something?"

Melora noticed that the door to her new bedroom was shut, but the round crystal doorknob turned in her hands. Slowly she pushed the door open.

The room was completely dark, save for the windows, which showed the relative lightness of the night outside. Silhouetted against the dim windowpanes was a tall figure. Melora felt her adrenaline go into overdrive, but stood her ground. She squinted, trying to make out the details of the figure at the other end of the room. There was a peculiar sound in the air, a sort of _snip, snip_ going on that Melora couldn't place. The figure was very still–could it be a wax figure? But if so, how did it get there in the first place? No, this had to be the person she saw. All she could see was a mass of tangled hair, and a delicately built facial silhouette.

"Um, hello, I'm Melora, I'm terribly sorry for scaring you last night..." she fumbled with her matches once again, and managed to drop a few before she was able to light the candles on the mantle. At once the figure was illuminated from the front, and Melora let out a little shriek. The figure–no, the man–standing before her backed away, trying to hide himself deeper in the shadows.

"Oh, oh dear." Melora gasped a bit. "You really don't need to use those, I'm perfectly harmless, I swear. If you could just put those down..."

Nothing happened for several minutes. The man remained huddled in the corner, away from the light of the window and from the light of the candle flames.

Not sure what to do, finally, Melora said, "I can see you don't want to be disturbed. I'll be leaving now, and maybe I can talk to you this weekend, so that I can move my stuff out of here. Yes, I'll be going."

Suddenly the man stood tall and crept towards Melora. "Don't go." He said, so quietly at first Melora didn't here. "Please, don't go." The snipping became louder.

Melora looked in a mixture of terror and fascination at the man. He was very white, and covered with fine scars. His eyes were inky pools, and below his jaw began a suit that seemed to cover the rest of him entirely. The suit was comprised of leather mostly, sewn together crudely, and belted together everywhere. And then...his _hands._

"What on earth happened to your hands?" Melora whispered, in shock. She completely forgot politeness as she saw the source of the snipping.

"He didn't finish me." The man held his arms up. Melora's gaze was totally fixated upon the man's ...appendages. They reminded her of the monsters in fairytales, the kind who slunk out from beneath beds and out of closest to steal children off in the night. They were like claws, but straight and glinting very dangerously in the candlelight. They were very very long, they must have reached his knees, and they connected at the knuckle by means of weilded metal and ball joints. They were razor sharp, she could see that, they were like..like...

"Scissors." Melora said aloud. The man nodded slightly, and lowered them, looking ashamed.

A moment of silence passed between them. Finally, Melora asked, "What's your name?"

"Edward." His voice was soft and meek, just barely low enough to be a tenor. Melora couldn't stop looking at him. He was so alien, a being made of porcelain and latex and leather and steel. What was the story behind him? Where did he come from? Surely he wasn't born that way, perhaps he'd gotten into an accident of some sort? But what cruel surgeon would give a person scissors for hands? His very existence was a mystery, a question to be answered. A long time Melora simply stood, wondering. Eventually her thoughts came back to earth, and she decided to keep the questions pretty mundane, for now.

"Do you live here by yourself? Do you have any relatives to speak of?"

He shook his head.

"So you're all alone. I'm sorry. I'm alone too." Melora spoke in hushed tones.

"You are?" Edward sounded a bit surprised.

"The Ashtons took me in a month ago, but it's not for forever. I was going to move here, once I'd bought some necessities. But you being here changes everything."

Edward said nothing. He knew that Melora wanted so desperately to ask if she could stay, and he couldn't even dare to broach the subject himself. It sounded so very dangerous. He could not be responsible for what horrors would eventually follow, should she move in with him. At least she wasn't going to ask him to come and live with her in the village below.

Finally Melora brightened, and asked, "So, is that your garden outside?"

Edward gave a small smile. This is something he could feel comfortable with. "Yes."

"I love it! I'd always wanted to meet the gardener, but I never imagined he'd be someone so very extraordinary." Melora gushed. "Can we go and see it? Maybe you can show me the different plants you have, I know I haven't seen them all."

So Melora led the way, rather exuberantly, out into the front garden. Edward all the while was pondering her use of the word "extraordinary." No one had really used that word to describe him. "Unusual," yes, "talented," sure, "special," regrettably so, but now he could not quite place the connotation of "extraordinary." What added meaning did it imply?

"I adore what you've done with these bushes! I feel like I'm in wonderland!" Melora went on, circling the leafy brontosaurus. Edward grimaced a bit. His creator had read to him from Alice in Wonderland, and from Through the Looking Glass. The two works of fiction had confused him, he could find no sense in them at all. Finally, he did not hold them in very high regard, and could make no more of the text than he could make anything from the real world of humans. Strange that works that held no interest to him at a superficial level should have stuck with his subconsious anyways, and be brought out in his work.

Melora commented on just about everything, her only lament that she could not study the garden in the daylight. Edward followed a few feet away, and at last sat down in the grass next to the ramparts with her. He settled with his knees bent upwards, his scissorhands balanced on them, snipping distractedly at the air.

"Look at that sky. Edward, when I saw you for the first time, I thought I was totally nuts. I've been seeing really weird stuff lately."

"Like what?" Edward interjected, genuinely curious.

"Oh...talking pigeons that turn into buttons, rooms melting into a soup of color at some words, very vivid pretend sessions with Margo–she's the Ashton's daughter—and that." Melora motioned towards the outside world.

"I can see it too." Edward confided in Melora very quietly. "It started when you came here the second time."

Melora stared at Edward like she'd seen him for the first time. He looked so out of place with it all, so afraid to damage the growing things around him with a single miscalculated gesture. What did it mean, that he too could see the world below writhing in an orgy of color? What was unique about the both of them, that set them off from the rest?

"You look as lost as I feel." She said, but not unkindly. "How long have you lived here?"

"Since Kim left. Since it snowed for the first time." Edward said. He looked away, suddenly he felt very sad. _Since I planted red flowers on her white dress. _

They sat in silence for a long time, Melora looking at the roaring, twinkling stars and wondering what the real story was behind this strange man, and Edward looking into the dense jungle beyond, trying not to let his loneliness consume him completely. The mansion had been his alone for so long, yet it no longer felt like home. Not since Kim left. Not since He had failed to wake again. Now all the mansion was to him was an empty chamber, filled with unpleasant memories of a life he could never hope to live out. The melancholy that filled it had descended on Edward, and continuing in this manner for the endless years seemed so hopeless.

"Well, I'd better be going. The Ashtons will be worried about me if I don't get home soon." Melora said after a while, standing up and brushing off her dress.

Edward turned to look at her, fear clutching his heart suddenly. Before he could stop himself, he heard himself say, "Don't leave. You can stay as long as you want. Don't leave. Please."

Melora's face was blank for a moment, but quickly became warm and kind. "I'm not leaving forever. If you want, I'll come back tomorrow night. I can't do this every night, though. I need to get enough sleep so I can work and save up enough money, and then if you want, I'll be able to stay all the days and nights, as long as you'll let me."

Edward felt a mixture of horror and joy when he heard this. He could only nod his head as he watched her disappear behind the wrought iron gates, leaving him by himself.

The next day, Melora could hardly keep her excitement to herself. She had gotten home last night around one a.m., and felt very sleepy during work, but it seemed so inconsequential compared to her new discovery. She piled hope upon hope that Edward would let her live there. Those shears had haunted her dreams, as she turned them over and over in her mind. What an enigma!

Work, of course, dragged by. Not many of the customers wanted anything but the latest teen movie, or whatever big blockbuster hit they carried. There was an entire section of foreign film that went untouched, and this depressed Melora. She loved foreign films of all kinds. _That's two more things I'll want to buy, eventually—a tv and a VCR. I don't need cable or anything, but it would be nice to be able to watch movies at night. Hmm. I'll have to contact BGE to route some power to the mansion—I'll have to keep my costs down, I can't really afford to be using too much electricity with this job. But an old tv should be easy to find, and a VCR even easier. I'll have to go yard sailing at some point. _ It was thoughts like these that occupied Melora's mind as she pointed out titles to customers and stocked the shelves. She had signed up for morning and evening shifts, and was getting paid eight dollars an hour–by the end of the week, she would have earned four hundred dollars. This kept Melora optimistic about her future–if she was thrifty, she could make it.

At the end of the day, Melora sped away on her blue scooter to the Ashton's to eat supper. She vaguely listened to Mike's acheivements at school, and the little dramas going on between Margo and her friends, and ate as quickly as she could. When asked about her day, Melora offered inconsequential gossip, and cleared her part of the table. Not wanting to attract too much attention to her nocturnal habits, Melora pretended to retire, and waited for the others to go to bed. When it seemed as though the whole house was asleep, Melora lifted the keys from the kitchen and disappeared into the night on her scooter.

"Edward?" Melora called into the darkness of the house. For a moment, all was quiet. Then Melora saw something move, and recognized Edward's figure descending the stairs. Melora smiled and quickly lit the candles in the main room. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting, it took me a bit to get all the supplies together."

"Supplies?" Edward asked, looking a bit apprehensive.

"Yeah, I thought I might as well do something productive while we chat. Let's see, I've got tarnish cream for the mirrors and the silverware," Melora said as she dug through her knapsack, "two rolls of paper towels, windex, trash bags, a dishcloth, a feather duster, some sponges, a hard bristled brush...yep, that's all I got." She straightened, smiling brightly. "This place is going to be so awesome in a few months. I mean, awesome-er."

Edward couldn't help but smile at this. He felt a bit apprehensive, should he put a stop to this? He looked around at the room; dust and cobwebs everywhere. Maybe he could bear to see them go.

Edward had tried to occupy himself that day, gardening a bit where it was needed, clipping the hedges, cutting short the weeds that grew there. He'd also flipped through the few magazines that had come to him when the creator was still alive and received mail—carefully hooking a shear into a previous tear and turning the page, which was yellowed with age. Nothing really helped his apprehension. Edward at times feared the worst—that Melora would show up with the entire village behind her, with pitchforks and torches, foaming at the mouth to burn his sanctuary to the ground. The opposite didn't comfort him too much either; yes, what if Melora stayed? Could she really live here and keep his presence a secret, could she tolerate his companionship? Above all, when exactly would she leave him–whithering into dust from age like everything else seemed to do here, or, more likely, when she realized he was just too different and left of her own will to find greener pastures? Edward's scissorhands snipped at the air in agitation.

"So, Edward, I'm guessing you're not the first person to live here?" Melora asked, setting all of her supplies out on a nearby table.

"No."

"Well, any idea where this previous person kept the mops and brooms? I figure I should start with the big stuff before I work my way down to the little stuff." Edward pointed to a door in the far wall. "Thank you, Edward."

Melora first dusted the top shelves of everything, working top to bottom, using windex in abundance. She spent half an hour doing the windows, which were caked with dirt and dust and cobwebs. She went through the first roll of paper towels this way, and threw them into a trashbag which Edward held for her, albeit somewhat awkwardly.

When she was done brooming the floor, Melora's face betrayed her dissatisfaction. Edward's eyebrows (or lack of them) rose and knitted together; had he done something wrong? Was there more to do that he could help with?

Finally, Melora turned to Edward and said, "I don't suppose this place has running water, does it?" Edward shook his head, but pointed to the kitchen. Leading the way, Edward motioned towards an old fashioned sink with a pump. The basin itself was dark and gross looking, but Melora's heart lifted when she saw it. "A well! This place uses well water! That is so unbelievably cool, Edward!"

Edward was flabbergasted; what did it matter?

"Don't you see, Edward, if this place uses well water, I don't have to pay water bills!" Melora said, dusting off the pump and setting a bucket she'd found beneath it. "I doubt anyone knows about this well anyways...granted, yeah, it's going to be kind of hard to get used to, me being a child of modern conveniences, but even that is sort of cool in its own stupid sort of way," Melora gushed. She pressed down on the pump, and at first nothing happened. She tried a few more times, and felt a pressure building in it. Finally the faucet sputtered, and out came a rather thick mixture of iron and water—it splashed into the bottom of the bucket like mud. "Delicious." Melora said, grinning at Edward. Edward grinned back.

Eventually the water ran clear, and Melora had a bucket full to take back with her to the main room. Retrieving a mop from the supplies closet, which was extremely dusty and a little scary looking, Melora set to work mopping the wooden floor that she had previously broomed.

"Can I help?" Edward asked, his shears resting horizontally across his chest, snipping idly.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I've got this stuff covered." Melora grunted, working the old-fashioned mop across the floor. "You just keep me company. This weekend I'm going to ask the Ashtons if there's a thrift store around here. I'm going to do things the cheap, do-it-yourself way, you know, if I can't find curtains I can nail some bed sheets over the windows, etc. Do that sound ok to you? I don't want to do anything that doesn't sit right with you, so please tell me if you think what I'm doing is a bad idea."

Edward only nodded.

With the floor mopped, the windows cleaned, and the shelves dusted, already Melora could see a huge difference. _A carpet might be nice, later on... _

Melora yawned. "I'm a bit tired, Edward. Would it be okay if I did the kitchen next time?"

"Yes."

"It's the long work hours...I'm going to need to stay put the rest of this week, if I want to be able to stand on my feet at work. But I'll come back this weekend, and hopefully I'll have some more things to liven up the place. Want to walk me out?"

Together, Edward and Melora left the house, heading for the gates. Melora spotted the dolly, and wheeled it in front of her. When they reached the gates, Edward stopped a few feet away from them. Melora turned. "Aren't you going to walk me to the end of your driveway?"

Edward took a step back. "I can't."

Melora looked at Edward for a long moment, her hand idly resting on the gate. "Something bad happened to you, out there, didn't it?"

He looked down and nodded.

"It's ok, Edward. Something bad happened to me too, out there. That's why I came here in the first place. I understand." Edward looked up. Her face was the perfect expression of acceptance and sympathy. For a moment, Edward could actually believe that she really did understand.

She left then, her white form getting smaller and smaller in the darkness. Edward stood there for a long time. He felt strange. There was a very confusing feeling rising in him—bitter like loss, exciting like yearning, dual and fighting itself. He needed to do something. Anything to express this emotion so that the feeling would lessen. His scissors began to twitch constantly beside him, snip-snip-snipping the air frantically. Edward could stand this emotion no longer, and he stalked back into the garden, looking desperately for something to take it out on. He found nothing; it all was perfectly formed, there was nothing he could do here. He went inside, and once again was startled at how clean the place looked. It took him back several years, and this too pained him.

Edward walked as fast as he could up the stairs, unable to run, his arms stiffly bent at right angles. At last he reached the attic, and found the wall where he had carefully pasted articles that had interested him so many years ago. Consumed with frustration, guilt, and this nameless hateful emotion, Edward lashed out with his razor-sharp blades, hitting the wall with a loud _thwak_ and ripping through the delicate paper. Again, he swiped at the wall, raking over it with four steel razor points, delighting in the shock it sent up his arms and the sight of the paper slashed to bits. Again and again he struck, scoring deep marks in the moldering wood.

It would be several minutes before Edward realized what he'd done. The feeling was gone now, or at least sufficiently expressed. Now all that was left was emptiness, and it felt worse than his previous feelings, Edward had to admit to himself. But now the only personal artifacts from his past lay in tatters at his feet.

Edward knelt down and examined the ads and articles, now mere confetti. Gently he pushed one fragment with the tip of a blade, but, already delicate from age, the scrap crumbled at his touch. Edward wished desperately he could cry, but he hadn't been built that way. Oh, would every night serve to remind him how inadequately he passed for human? Would every day serve to show him the destructive power of his emotions?

Lifting himself, joints creaking, Edward went and stood by the hole in the rafters overlooking the garden. She would not return for several days, she had told him that. What was he supposed to do until then? _Play in the garden. Wander the halls and rooms of his house. Wait. What else can you do?_ Would his life then be measured in the empty moments between her visits? Oh, Edward wished she'd never came—maybe if she hadn't, he could have ignored his loneliness. But Melora had made him realize how alone he really was, and the pain was so unbearable now that he wished for anything to make her return, to watch her clean and be her ever devoted listener.

This was wishful thinking, Edward knew. He knew all to well how little he could protect those he cared about from the destructive side effects of his passion.

RnR, as always!


	5. Chapter 5

"_Come to life my deviltry Possess this poor company _

_Our secret be benefit Their unhappy lack of it _

_Awaken my trusting friend My undisturbed reflection _

_So fluid your beauty All gears and teeth _

_Come Alive _

_Come to life my second skin To protect the madness locked within _

_Yet I know a place where we can touch in tongues _

_Though words did betray us Did bury our past Cry blasphemy _

_Take my dear ones The use of this spell may serve too well _

_Our mouth is our chalice Our tongue our sword _

_And truth holds a dozen doors One thrown open wide shall yield one more _

_Yet mystery remains above their eyes _

_Come Alive"_

Faith and the Muse, "The Silver Circle".

The promotion came as a surprise to Melora.

"You want me to be a manager?" she said the next morning.

"Melora, you're the only one here who actually works hard, and your passion for film comes across to the customers. But unlike the rest of the staff, who work here for pocket money to go see movies and go bowling, you're actually working to support yourself. I understand your arrangement with the Ashtons is only temporary?" her boss asked.

"Oh, yes, sir. I'm hoping to move out in the next month or two."

"Which is why you're working double shifts. If anyone deserves a promotion, it's you. Besides, you're here to stay–these kids will probably quit as soon as school starts again. I can afford a high turnover rate with the shelf-stockers, but not with managers," said her boss.

Melora was further thrilled when she discovered that she would be getting Mondays off from now on. _That means I can spend an extra day cleaning with Edward!_

This didn't mean she worked less hard. If anything, Melora worked harder, determined to prove her worth of her new responsibilities. Her boss admired her work ethic from a distance, and Melora thought, _if only he knew how much of my time is spent 'working'. _

Over the next few days, Melora would go home to the Ashton's to have supper. Many times she would enquire about any yard sales that they might be aware of, and before going to bed, Melora would check the newspapers for any mention of them. She got the address to the nearest thrift store, and promised herself that she would go that weekend.

It would be a Friday afternoon, on Melora's lunch break, when Mike and a friend of his walked into the video store. Melora was still at her post behind the counter, and seeing Mike, she waved over to him. Mike didn't turn around. "Hey, Mike, lookin' for anything?" Melora raised her voice, thinking he just hadn't seen her. He still didn't turn around, becoming very focused on a particular video case. His friend turned around to look at Melora, and asked Mike something. Mike looked mortified when his friend left him to go and talk to Melora.

His hair was blond, and cut close to his scalp. His skin was very tan, and his eyes were very blue. He seemed straight out of a Tommy Hilfiger advertisement. He smiled at Melora.

"Hi. My name's Brian."

_Of course it would be._ Melora thought.

"You're the girl who lives with Mike, right? I've heard a lot about you."

_Oh, I'm sure you have._ "Yeah. Tales of the homeless insane? Charming I'm sure."

Brian laughed. "So what brings you here? Do you go to school around here?"

"No. School's not my thing. I just work here–the Ashtons were very kind to take me in," said Melora.

"Where are you from originally?"

_Oh no. Please don't ask that question..._Melora pleaded silently, and as he spoke she saw his palm, resting on the counter, begin to drip upwards like a flesh-lava lamp. Brian's wheat colored hair drifted in the air and writhed, suddenly animated. The blue of his irises flowed out to the sides of his face like a stream, floating outwards in cornflower ribbons. His mouth opened, and a billion tiny stars fell out, spinning as they tumbled into an abyss over which Melora hovered. They wrapped themselves around her, singing to heaven and encompassing her vision with their golden light-----

"Hey, do you know where 'Weird Science' is? I can't find it." Mike said, and suddenly Melora found herself back behind the counter, with Brian looking at her expectantly and Mike looking embarrassed.

Melora rubbed her forehead and quickly led Mike to the movie, pointing it out on the bottom shelf of the science fiction section. _Insane people don't know they're insane. Just remember that and you'll do fine, Melorio, _she thought as she checked the movie out for them. At this point, Melora was pretty sure she'd confirmed the homeless insane rumors about her ('well, they are true, more or less, right?') and didn't expect Mike or Brian to stick around, but Brian held back.

"Hey, when's your lunch break?" Brian asked, trying to act non-chalant and almost succeeding.

"Right now, actually. Why?" Melora said, craning her head back and studying Brian with suspicion.

"Mike and I were going to go to Dukylon Burger, wanna come?"

"I can't spend my money that way. Sorry." Melora said. She was suddenly relieved and disappointed at the same time.

"No problem. I can buy your lunch. Come on. Mike says you've been here a month and you haven't made any friends your age."

"How very charitable of Mike to say." Melora rolled her eyes, but turned the sign on the door to say 'out to lunch, be back in 15 min.' and followed Mike and Brian out.

"So, Melora, when do you think you'll move out?" Mike asked, squeezing ketchup onto his burger.

"Oh, believe me, nothing excites me more than the prospect of not having to deal with your thinly veiled contempt, Michael darling." Brian laughed at this. Mike frowned, and quipped back,

"That's not the sort of language I expect to hear from a homeless vagabond with no schooling."

"If you ever actually spoke to me once in a while, you'd discover how cultivated I am. Besides, I never said I didn't go to school. Right now it's just not feasible for me to attend classes, I've more practical, immediate things to think about. And, you know, I also read a lot. For fun, can you imagine?" Melora scoffed.

"What kind of books do you like to read?" Brian asked.

"I like the romantics, mostly. Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, oh, and Byron, and Keats. Hahaha, ok, I'll admit I love Poe–how's that for fulfilling stereotypes?" Melora said, and then looked forlorn. "I had to leave all my books behind when I came here. Just the essentials..."

"I've heard of Wuthering Heights, and E.G. Poe of course, but those other people you mentioned don't ring a bell." Mike said. "I don't think they make you read the Romantics unless you take a specific course in college on turn of the century lit."

"And you, Mike, what do you like to read?" Melora asked, without a trace of sarcasm this time.

"Actually, once I started highschool and got into the honors programs, I lost the time I used to devote to reading. Now I'm just out of the habit; I wish I could motivate myself to read again, but I guess the TV is just so much easier to watch." Mike looked a bit embarrassed. "I used to like reading Sherlock Holmes, though. Now once in a while I'll read some modern stuff, when it's short and to the point."

"And you, Brian? What sort of books do you read?" asked Melora.

"Well," Brian grinned sheepishly, "I'm more of a physical person–my parents never really pushed the reading issue with me. I'm trying for a sports scholarship in football. But I know a lot of people, like you for instance, who are really into reading, and I'd love to have someone pick out some books for me, see if I can get into it myself."

"Yes, rise above your own jock stereotype!" Melora cried, "once I move out of the Ashton's place, I'm going to have to get back into the habit of reading myself. I've been so busy raising the money and cleaning the place up for me to move in."

"So you're still going to move into the house on the hill?" Mike asked.

"I've already got my bedroom picked out. The place needs a lot of work, granted, but it's absolutely perfect for me."

"Maybe we could visit you once you move in?" Brian said.

Melora froze. _My god, me and my big stupid mouth. There's no way Edward would be happy about me entertaining friends up there. Damn; quick! Think up some plausible excuse!...oh no! I can't think of one! Ok, time to pull out the crazy lady routine—_

"Hahaha, you know, I'd love to, but I'm actually sort of a recluse. Even after I've cleaned the place up, I'm going to be painting nonstop in my free time, and I tend to get a little weird when I throw myself into my work. But maybe once in a while, I can come and visit you guys?"

Mike made a face. "As long as you wash the paint stains off your face."

"You paint?" Brian was so sincere that Mike was having trouble suppressing his laughter. To think that his best friend, who was a total jock, normally, had a crush on this artsy intellectual weirdo loser.

"Well, I did, back when I had the time. I really miss being able to make art until four a.m. and not care about how I look the next day. But once I move in, you can bet that all my spare moments are going to be spent elbow deep in paint." Melora winked at Mike, who looked like he was going to be sick. "Anyways, I have to be getting back. Us working people have to, you know, work."

Melora was surprised to see Brian meet her again at the video store. "You know, I was serious. I'd really like to get into reading more. Maybe you could suggest something?" The look on his face was so earnest, it was hard for Melora not to find him just a little bit endearing.

"It might be a little too archaic for you, but maybe you should pick up a copy of 'The Swiss Family Robinson'. I loved reading it, one of the first books I remember really getting into. It's a survival adventure book, but it was written before people had a really good grasp on geography, so to us the land they end up in sounds more fictional than anything else." Melora suggested.

"Huh. Okay, I'll go by the library this weekend. Thanks, Melora, you're a peach!" Brian said, waving to her as he left. Melora grinned, wondering just how unsubtle boys could be.

That weekend found Melora zooming off to the thrift store—a salvation army warehouse, which delighted Melora in its size. She had brought the dolly with her, and parked it on the side walk while inside she browsed.

By the end of the morning, Melora had bought out every single set of bed sheets, some throw rugs, two lamps, a TV and a VCR, both old but in good condition. She also bought a few cookbooks, a book on gardening, a stereo with its own subwoofer, and a small step ladder. This she piled onto the dolly, carefully making sure nothing would fall over. All in all, she'd spent eighty dollars, but it was money well spent (at least, in her opinion.) Making her way down the shopping center, she stopped in the grocery store. There she bought a bulk pack of toilet paper, and some hand soap. Melora went a little nuts with the dish soap, buying a sixteen pack. _I'm going to need to scrub the last century of grime off the kitchen utensils before I eat on them!_ Melora was delighted to find that they sold seeds; and soon she had enough to start her own vegetable garden: tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, squash, potatoes, lettuce, rhubarb, basil, thyme, rosemary, and mint. She also stocked up on canned goods, and this included canned corn, olives, peas, green beans, and soups. The bill was pretty big, but Melora had expected it to be, and she knew that she could afford it. She paid someone to courier it to the Ashton's place, and then left for the house on the hill.

"Afternoon, Edward!" Melora said, raising her voice to echo off the walls as she pushed open the front door. "Miss me?"

Soon Edward appeared at the top of the stairs, and looked at Melora for a moment, as if she were a dream. "You came back."

"Of course I did! You didn't think I'd be gone forever, did you?" Melora beamed, but then suddenly her face fell. "...unless you didn't want me to come back..."

Edward's eyes widened, and he hurried down the stairs, albeit a little stiffly. As he stood before her, he shook his head. "I'm glad you're here, Melora."

"Oh," Melora looked relieved, "thank goodness." Then she became serious. "Edward, are you sure you're ok with this? I mean to move in here, with you, before the end of the month. That's pretty big, after only meeting me a week ago. You just say the word, and I'll understand, and I'll pack my things and go."

Edward gazed down at Melora, his face a web of fine scars. How could he express the danger that was posed to her, living with him? Words never came easily to him. After thinking for a while, Melora patiently waiting for him to answer, he said to her with the utmost sincerity: "I don't want to be alone."

The look in Melora's eyes stunned him, momentarily. "I know," she said, "it is so hard to suffer time by one's lonesome. Is there any creature beneath the sun who does not wish for congenial company? I understand what you mean, Edward."

Then she smiled. "I'll try not to get on your nerves, though."

The rest of the afternoon and evening would be spent in each others company. Melora unloaded the dolly in the main room, and quickly went back to the Ashton's to pick up the groceries. After that, Melora set to work on the kitchen.

"Good lord," was all Melora could say when she opened the cabinets to examine the tupperware. Caked with dust, yes, but beneath that could be seen the finery of painted china, exquisitely formed blossoms and vines curling round the edges of porcelain saucers. All in all, there were eight dining sets, with matching cups, utensils, and bowls. Here was one set, the orbit of each cup and plate painted robins egg blue, and round the rims in gold filigree, while inside lay the snowiest white one could ever see. Another, in deepest midnight blue, with a tracery of silver plums nestled at the bottom of each plate and cup. Each were unique pieces of art, and all were inscribed with their creation dates: 1710-1783.

"These are originals. They're not reproductions." Melora said breathlessly. "Oh, Edward, these are so beautiful...and priceless." For one moment, Edward wondered if she was thinking of selling them, but then she said: "there's no way I can wash these in so dirty a sink!" She laughed then.

And so Melora began to fill the sink with water, and went to work lathering the center table with dish-soap. The kitchen was a combination of a scullery and pantry, really. Melora guessed the house was built sometime in the late 1880's, but it was still pretty old fashioned even for then. There were no counter tops, for one thing, all food would have to be prepared on the large center table, under which were stored all the silverware and such. In the corner was a large icebox, which would be much less convenient than a fridge, but Melora could get used to a lot of things. She used a hard-bristled brush to scrub the grime away, and all the while told Edward about her day, and all that she hoped to accomplish by the end of the weekend. Edward found himself listening, rapt, and for once daring to imagine what life could be like, living together with Melora. He couldn't help but like her; everything to her was a challenge, a fun project, and there was always humor to be found with her. She had a sense of purpose, even when she had no one to help her ('but you do help me,' she would say, 'you keep me company.')

Though there were still stains here and there, they were deep set into the table, and wouldn't really matter. Melora took out all the dishes, stacking them as carefully as one would stack butterfly wings, and scrubbed out all the dust from the cabinets. Then she took each plate, cup, bowl, or tureen and delicately washed them with dish soap and a soft cloth, not daring to use something as rough as a sponge.

This fascinated Edward. How long had it been since he'd seen a pair of living hands? Now he watched Melora's deft fingers play over each piece, gently rinsing off the dust and inevitable dead insect or two. Her hands were soft, and now the undersides were pink with the cold water and manual work, but the tops were ivory white. Every imperfection seemed to Edward to be a beautiful declaration: _I am unique. I am the only one with hands like these. _In his time with the creator, Edward had been exposed to a few, very spare ideas about God. It had been the inventor's concern that, should his creation learn too much of God, he would despair of ever becoming 'human' enough to attain an immortal soul. This did not concern Edward, finally----if experience was to be learnt from, the lesson was that he possessed eternity already; life until death, as the gorgons of Greek mythology would say.

Yet now, as Edward gazed upon these flesh and blood parts that he would never possess now, he gained a sort of insight into deity. With all their so-called 'imperfections', Melora's hands were a testament to the infinite complexity found in nature, which for Edward would always be as close to God as he would ever get, receiving his sermons in his flower beds. These hands were not spun from silk and nickel filament, they were grown inside a woman, made from the earth as it were. And they were the first, and last, pair of hands to ever bear the unique web of whorls and triangles that made up her unique genetic print.

To Edward's astonishment, he found himself envying the plate cradled so lovingly in Melora's hands. Under their tender care, colors turned to their brilliant former glory, and everything sparkled like new. As soon as he realized this, he became confused. What absurdness, to envy a plate!

"...and I was thinking of finding a place to set down a vegetable garden. It's hard work, keeping one, but in the end it will be so much cheaper, and thriftiness is my chief concern right now. I bought seeds already, and a book on gardening for beginners. It's just the basics, you know, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, that sort of thing. Oh, but I did buy some rhubarb. I make a mean rhubarb pie—you just wait, next summer, it's all you'll want to eat," babbled Melora. As she spoke, she was aware of a glaring mystery—this house wasn't stocked with any food. As far as she knew, Edward had no caretaker, and he never left the grounds. How did he eat? How did he do anything normal human beings do, with those things? He couldn't even undo his own suit, did he even bathe? Oh, Melora would find out the secret to Edward, as much as she could at least, but no straight answers would come out of him, she knew that already. She would have to find some other way to unravel the mystery, and in the meantime, she was perfectly fine to assume that there was a logical explanation to it all.

After the plates, Melora tackled the silverware, laying it out on the table where Edward sat. Taking a cloth and the polishing cream, Melora polished the tarnish off each fork, knife, and spoon. The entire time, she continued to talk, and Edward smiled and nodded his head, and added his own brief input once in a while, or asked a question.

"I suppose I should go to the post office, to set up a mailbox. I can't imagine anyone ever mailing something to me, but it could happen. I have to contact BGE, which reminds me, Edward, I know this house is pretty old, but is it equipped with outlets? Did the previous owners use electricity?" Edward nodded.

"Oh good. Whew. It costs thousands to get the electric company to come to your house and install the wires and outlets, I don't know if I could have ever afforded it." Melora said, buffing a spoon to glowing.

"I have to really consider things carefully, here. At what point should I move out of the Ashtons's? I need to get the power back on before I move in, but I want to do that at the last possible moment, to avoid spending needlessly. I checked already, this house uses indoor plumbing, thank goodness, but I'll still need to heat up water for the bathtub in the powder room. Hmm. Oh, and I'll need to stock up on shampoo and soap." Melora didn't add that she would spend an evening in the upcoming week sewing her own re-usable sanitary napkins, since she knew how to do it and it would be a way to avoid spending tons of money on disposable ones every year.

"I wonder if I should consider saving up for a car? That would definitely be the long term investment of my life, and there's no way I could afford car insurance. I can't really think of a reason I would need one, save that it would be convenient for getting to work and the store, so maybe I'll wait and see on that."

Once Melora was done polishing the silverware, she rinsed it all in the sink, and sorted it into its new designated drawer. Next she brought out the pots and pans, which didn't need polishing, but would need to be washed before cooked with. Melora noted that there was a large appliance in one corner–it was an iron stove to one side, with a compartment beneath to burn logs, and next to it an oven, also with a compartment to burn wood beneath. One more thing she would have to get used to.

The pots were on the larger side, as was typical for the era from which they came (1830's, Melora guessed), made so to accommodate the larger families back then. Melora found herself scrubbing the inside of a large cauldron which was sort of over kill, as far as size went, for just two people. _Oh well. I suppose we'll just have lots of leftovers. _

"Hey, Edward, I realize I need to wash the window here, but could you tell me if you think that bit of earth right there outside would be a good place to start a veggies garden? It'd be the most convenient spot, after all." Melora asked, craning her neck to see.

Edward got up and walked over to where she was standing, peering out into the untamed land behind the house. There was a scullery door leading right to it. As far as he could tell, it would be alright to plant there.

"It should be ok." he said.

"Cool." Melora said. "Now all I have to do is wash the rest of these pots, wipe down these windows, fill the ice box at some point, and mop the floor, and we'll have ourselves a clean kitchen." Edward smiled.

True to her word, by supper time Melora had finished the kitchen, and was situating the Turkish reproduction rugs around the main room. "Okay," Melora said, straightening and wiping the sweat off her face, "the Ashtons are expecting me home for supper, but I'm coming back here afterwards. I might just sleep here, lord knows I'm not going to quit cleaning this place till my body literally gives out."

Edward was at once unsure of this prospect. It was another first for him. Of course, Melora was safer than she could ever know from him, that wasn't what he was worried about. It was simply a new concept, the idea that someone else would be sleeping in the house. Was this really ok?

"Uh, Edward, are you going to be okay here?" Melora interrupted his thoughts.

"Yes, Melora." he replied quietly.

"But, I mean, do you have anything to eat at all? You must be hungry..."

It was then that Melora noticed the _snip, snip_ sound again–Edward had been relatively quiet the whole day in that respect. It now brought sudden, glaring attention to his, for the lack of a better term, disfigurement, where before Melora had barely taken notice of it that day. She looked up into his face. There Melora saw a look of sadness, the kind that came only from being misunderstood, from being impossibly different from everyone else.

"I don't need to." Edward said softly, "I was made, not born like you." The look of sadness only intensified then.

Melora was shocked. _Well, there's your straight answer..._Yet, it seemed to make more sense than anything else she could have come up with, as impossible as it sounded.

"Oh Edward, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it." Melora felt at a loss for words. What do you say to a person when they tell you they can't eat because they're not technically human?

"You don't have to be." Edward replied, the sadness gone for now.

"Well, please don't think that this changes anything, really. You're still my friend, ok?" Melora said firmly, looking Edward straight in the eye, wanting there to be no doubt in either person.

Edward gave a small smile. "Ok, Melora."


	6. Chapter 6

"_For those who have accepted the burden of shame,_

_For the innocent only guilt will remain_

_And our lives will be forced to accommodate_

_The perpetrators of our own bastard race._

_All my senses rebel_

_Under the scrutiny of their persistent gaze._

_It took a lifetime to get here,_

_A journey I'll never make again._

_I stand accused of a thousand and one crimes,_

_A witness to events that led to this present time._

_These traditions which bind our hands and keep us tied_

_Will never survive the greatest test of time._

_Deliver me from those feverish eyes_

_That threaten to unbalance my state of mind,_

_For I must confess only to the smallest of crimes._

_A sense of guilt, a sense of guilt_

_A sense of guilt, a sense of guilt"_

---Dead Can Dance, "The Trial."

A/n: Yay, sixth chapter! This is the first fic for which I've written so fast and so often, I find I'm having dreams about the story. Which seems fitting, for this whole story was started on the basis of a dream I had years ago.

My apologies, in advance, if Edward seems a mite out of character in this one. Up till now, I've kept him pretty quiet, but tell me if you think this seems too outrageous for him, ok? My thanks to those of you who have reviewed, and guess what? Someone has very kindly drawn fanart of my character, Melora:

pics(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)krysyonysh(slash)pic(slash)0002hg15

This is a first for me! S/he also drew a fanart of edward:

pics(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)krysyonysh(slash)pic(slash)0002ka8s

My policy for fanart is to always draw something in return, and so I have drawn the first picture so far:

img(dot)photobucket(dot)com(slash)albums(slash)v311(slash)Xevv861(slash)edward(dot)jpg

My apologies if it looks a little rushed, I will be taking more time on future illustrations.

Dinner with the Ashton's was rushed as usual for Melora. The entire time she bounced her leg beneath the table, and kept recalculating when it would be appropriate to leave. Mike was laughing about Brian's crush on Melora, and Mr. and Mrs. Ashton talked about their day. Margo mainly listened and asked questions. The entire time, Melora was turning over what Edward had told her. _Not born, but made. Not human, but something very close, and for all of his closeness, he is barricaded within his uniqueness. How can one man so gentle live with such potentially destructive instruments for hands? How must he relate to the world, when everything he touches is altered, usually for the worse? And more, who made him? Was that why I saw those conveyor belts and bizarre machinery, was Edward brought to life on one of those assembly lines? _

Melora eventually cleared her plate, and let the Ashtons know where she would be. No one seemed particularly alarmed at this. Melora thought to herself, _They have no idea! They never knew about him! This is all so weird..._ She left then, taking a few extra rolls of paper towels with her, and made haste on her scooter.

"Hey Edward." Melora said as she came closer to the figure sitting by himself on the couch, next to Melora's old suitcase. "Do you think I could ask you some questions? You don't have to answer anything you don't want to."

Edward nodded, snipping nervously at the air, his arms folded in his lap.

"How long have you lived all by yourself here?" Melora asked, sitting down next to him, the suitcase between them.

"I don't know," he said softly, "I lost track."

"Do the people below know about you at all?"

Edward was silent for a moment, and then said: "One time, a woman found me here. She took me down to the village, and I lived with her family."

Melora sat, rapt. Edward spoke very softly, and sounded so nervous. She patiently waited for him to go on.

"...I tried to fit in. I tried to make people like me. But that woman had a daughter, and it was only for her that I tried so hard." Edward stood up then and went to the window, lifting his arms to brace himself against the wall. Melora saw his black silhouette against the moonlit glass, and breathed deeply, feeling something within herself tighten. She instinctually took in the picture and memorized its every detail.

"Kim."

Melora waited a moment, and then quietly spoke. "You loved her, didn't you?" There was no accusation in her voice, no bitterness. Only empathy.

"I love her still." Edward sighed against the windowpane, and then turned around to look at Melora. "But a boy wouldn't leave her alone, and he made Kim ask me to help them break into his fathers house."

"Did you know it was his father's house?" Melora asked, fascinated with the story.

"Yes."

"Then why'd you agree to it?"

"She asked me to."

Melora was shocked. She herself knew she could not claim to such devotion to a loved one—to her, Edward seemed suddenly even more admirable than she'd previously thought. "What happened then?"

Edward came to sit back down on the couch. "They left. I was arrested. Everyone saw it happen. No one trusted me after that, and soon they became angry. Kim told me to run, so I did." He paused. Then: "I was angry. When I came here, Kim followed me. But so did the boy. He tried to hurt Kim, and he tried to stop me from protecting her."

They sat in silence a long time, Edward looking at the floor, Melora looking at him, her eyes wide.

Finally, Edward turned his head to look at her. "I was so angry. I was so tired of pretending to understand their complex ethics, their incomprehensible morality. I did the only thing that made sense at the time—I–I pushed him out the window..." He paused, lifting his arm to show Melora the razor sharp blades that extended a foot from where his knuckles should have been, "with these."

Melora was stunned. She had only minutes before guessed at this possibility, but to hear soft-spoken, shy Edward speak it aloud, and to say it as if nothing had ever felt more right to him, it was...well, she didn't know what to think of it. At first she was mortified, that he had actually killed someone. Then she wondered if she had any right to judge him; it was self defense, after all, wasn't it? Could she assume the same moral obligations of him, given that he wasn't technically a human being and lived in isolation for so long? Melora knew she would have to give this a lot of thought.

"Do you hate me, Melora?" Edward asked quietly.

"No, Edward. I don't," she said. "Only, what took place after that? Did they come after you?"

"They came as far as the front door. Kim went down and told them I was dead, that we had killed each other. They left, and Kim said goodbye to me." Edward said. "I never saw any of them ever again. Kim never came to visit me. I've been here ever since."

Melora tried to think of something to say. Throughout his time there, Melora realized, he'd never asked for anything. He'd given all he could, tried as hard and in as many ways as he could to please, but always and forever he would be too different to live among them. Finally, all she could say was, "Your's is the saddest story I've heard, Edward. I'm so sorry."

"It's ok." Edward said. "I'll understand when you want to leave too."

Melora was shocked, but at the same time she suddenly realized he was right to assume such a thing, given his experience.

"No, Edward. Please don't think something like that." Melora pleaded. "Let's get one thing straight here. I understand that you're different from me. I'm never going to ask you to change the way you are to make me feel more comfortable. I don't expect anything from you—I'm your guest here."

Edward's eyes widened. The way she had explained it, it had put things into words which he could have never hoped to articulate by himself. _She accepts me the way I am, _he thought, _I can be myself and still have a friend._

"Granted," Melora continued, "sometimes I might make the mistake of assuming you're the same as me. You're awfully convincing..." she smiled and winked at him, and after a moment Edward's mouth slowly spread into a brief grin.

"I guess the only thing I can ask from you is patience for my shortcomings. I'll probably forget about the things you can and can do, and when that happens just remember I'm not doing it on purpose. Sooner or later I'll come to understand just what you're capable of, and I will always try to respect that." Edward nodded at this, amazed that someone from the world below could be so honest about themselves.

Melora stood up. "I think that's about all I can handle right now, as far as questions go. I've never seen you talk so much."

Edward looked a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

Melora laughed. "No, silly, I think it's wonderful when you speak your mind. I know I'd want to talk to someone after so long." Then Melora grew serious. "You know, no one I've talked to down there gives a second thought to me moving in here. None of them know you exist. Whatever happened to you back then, no one must have talked about it afterwards. Those people probably never spoke of it to their kids, and now everyone just assumes this is a big abandoned house."

Edward nodded. "It was a long time ago."

"Well." Melora looked around the room. Still so many things to do. "There's still so many things to do."

Edward brightened at this.

"And it won't do itself, unless I'm crazier than I previously thought. Shall we, then?"

They worked late into the night. Edward was tired of simply watching Melora work, and so became resolute to help out in some way. First they had to stock the pantry of all Melora had bought earlier that day. For this, Edward delighted Melora in holding open the shopping bags for her, slipping the blunt end of a blade beneath each handle and lifting the bag to where Melora could reach inside without having to bend over. Into the pantry went all the canned foods, and also the cookbooks and the books on gardening. In one corner she stored the seeds she'd bought for later planting. In the bottom of the pantry Melora stocked the bulk pack of dish soap.

"I'm going to need to find the outlets around here, so I can set up the electrical stuff in strategic locations." Melora said, pulling up her sleeves. "I suppose you wouldn't know where they might be?" Edward shook his head. Kim's little brother had once tried to convince Edward to stick one of his blades into an electric socket; it was his luck that Kim's mother intervened, or else Edward might have tried it.

Melora looked suspiciously to the conveyor belts at the other end of the main room. Bending down beneath one of the tables, Melora pushed aside some wax fragments which she'd somehow missed in her earlier sweep, and located a plug in the wall. She pulled the plug loose, and indeed there was an outlet behind it–one that looked compatible to modern standards. Melora proceeded to discover four other outlets in the room; for the time, it was unusual to need so much access in one room. Melora wondered once again if it was on these conveyor belts that Edward was born.

"Edward, do you mind if I set up the stuff mostly on this table here? This room must have once been a laboratory, for all this equipment. I wouldn't want to disrespect any of your memories here by setting up something as vulgar as a TV set on it."

"No, it's alright." Edward said.

Melora then picked up the TV set, which was a heavier, older model, and waddled precariously with it to the table. She then set the VCR on top, and placed the stereo next to it. Next, Melora turned her attention to the lamps, setting them up on opposite sides of the room. Lastly, she went to her suitcase. Edward looked on curiously as she sorted through artwork, clothes, finally to pull out several small, square, flat objects. She smiled at him then, "I could leave my books behind, but these CD's are too hard to find in the regular stores." She went and placed them next to the stereo.

"CD's?" Edward asked. The word was unfamiliar to him.

"Yeah. Is it ok? I used to listen to my music while I painted, or just to dance at four a.m. by myself." Melora giggled. "It's pretty much a mix of classical baroque stuff and modern ethereal. I figure it's inoffensive enough. And I see colors when I listen to music, so it helps me focus on what I'm painting."

"You do?" Edward sounded fascinated. He'd never known humans were capable of this.

"Yeah." Melora shrugged. "It's pretty rare, but some people have it. Probably part of the reason I paint in the first place, and now that I think of it, probably the reason why I'm having so many visual hallucinations."

Edward nodded, pretending to understand. He'd heard no music, not really, when he was living with Kim. He knew his creator had put on some records for him to listen to, when he was in the final stages of his assemblage, but he'd been too amazed at the world as a whole to really single out any sort of memory of the music itself. What would Melora's music sound like?

"Do you think it would be ok if I set up my studio in this room?" Melora asked, "it's not like we'll be entertaining anyone, and I figure the closer we keep everything, the less work it will be to keep this place clean. This house is really too big for just two people, if we can stick to just a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room, I think things will be a lot easier for us."

"Okay." Edward really had no idea either way. He was willing to trust Melora's judgement here.

"Speaking of bedrooms, where do you sleep, Edward?" Melora said.

Edward considered for a moment. "My room is in the attic. But I don't sleep there. I don't sleep anywhere. I don't need to, really."

Melora took this in. How much longer eternity would seem, she thought, should one never sleep at all. How much lonelier a person must have felt. "Can I see your room?"

Edward nodded. Up the stairs he led her, down the hall where her bedroom was, around a corner, and up another set of stairs, these much steeper than the first. Pushing open a plain wooden door, they came to the attic–a large, drafty place, falling to ruin. It was empty save for a fireplace, and set inside the fireplace was a rotting bed, the sheets in tatters. On the floor surrounding the bed were bits of crumbling paper, what looked to be old advertisements. Melora knelt down beside them, and tried to gently piece together one that had not been so thoroughly shredded. It was an advertisement for ladies opera gloves. Melora looked to the date: December 6th, 1922. She shot a glance towards Edward; could he possibly be at least that old? If he was, that meant that whoever created him could very well be pictured in those vintage daguerreotypes she'd found in her room!

Melora moved to stand up, and as she did she caught sight of the window at the far end of the room. She shivered; the glass was completely shattered in the center, leaving only razor sharp fragments cleaving to the frame._ A boy fell to his death there_ , Melora thought, knowing this proved what Edward had told her had really taken place. Suddenly she was glad that at least it had not been Edward himself who met that fate, either in that fight so long ago, or by his own will, driven to desperation and loneliness.

Melora pulled herself back from these depressing thoughts, and instead looked to slanting roof, where a large hole in the beams gaped. The view was breathtaking, she could see all the way to the ocean on such a clear night; and though the heavens turned pinwheels and boiled with celestial dust of every color, Melora could only feel uplifted by the beauty of it all.

When it was clear to Edward that Melora was taking her time enjoying the view, he went to stand beside her.

"Look at it, Edward." Melora said, spreading her arms. "Those people down there can't possibly understand how they look to you; they might as well ask themselves what Heaven sees when it looks down upon the tiny earth below. From there, up close, things seem so petty and ordinary. I see it too when I'm down there. Of course they wouldn't be able to understand somebody as miraculous and beautiful as you. But from where you stand, you can take each of their tiny lives and piece them together as part of a glittering whole, a reflection of the starry sky and just as wondrous. You can see a little farther down the road than they can."

Edward looked at Melora. Melora looked back up at him. Once more, his expression was hard to read, but only because his features seemed always so impossibly sad. But Melora saw that in his eyes was a look of wonder, that what she said might have made sudden sense to him.

"No one ever said the sort of things you say to me, down there." He said.

"No one down there ever was homeless, or crazy. It's given me a new perspective on things." Melora pointed out. "It's hard to think of the sacredness in all things when you can talk about the latest TV program you saw or spy on your neighbors' private lives or try out the latest shade of nail polish."

Edward had never looked at things this way. When he'd lived with the Avon lady, her quaint little life among the other housewives seemed charming, if perhaps a little strange to him for all its preoccupation with laws, money-making, and with constant social interaction.

Melora yawned. "It's way late. I'm going to put the sheets on the bed, and get ready for bed. Is that ok?"

"Yes." Edward said, but then looked unsure.

"What is it, Edward?" Melora asked.

"Is it ok if I sit next to your bed while you sleep? I don't want to be alone tonight." Edward did not sleep, but he was able to put himself into a sort of trance. Edward did not know how to explain this to Melora though, the word 'trance' was not in his vocabulary.

"Well, I suppose it's alright. I mean, if not my room, than simply some other room in this place, right? I don't want you to be lonely, Edward." Melora knew that in society, it was bad taste to let a man sleep in your room with you if you were not long term lovers, but she supposed that the rules didn't really apply to Edward, being what he was. And Melora supposed that she herself was no longer bound to society's laws, being already on the fringe as she was.

They made their way to the living room, where Melora took a tooth brush from her pocket and brushed her teeth in the kitchen sink. She then selected a set of bed sheets and went upstairs to the bedroom, lighting the candles there. Edwards watched her in fascination as she prepared the bed. It was warm enough not to need blankets, though Melora knew that in the winter she would have to chop wood for the fireplace and invest in some comforters.

Melora deliberated for a moment, once the bed was made. She herself did not care if anyone saw her naked; she was very comfortable with her body and did not really care for society's strict codes for it, but never did she want to make Edward feel uncomfortable. However, Melora was a little hesitant at the thought of changing in the darkness of a creepy, cobweb infested bathroom. Finally she put the question to Edward.

"Um, would you feel terribly uncomfortable if I just changed here?"

"Change what?" Melora reddened. His innocence was endearing, but it had embarrassing side affects.

"I mean, would you mind if I got undressed here? I've nothing to change into, really, I'd just be stripping down to my undershirt and knickers..."

Edward considered. The last time he'd witnessed that, Kim hadn't known he was there, and he had felt rather bad about it at the time. Edward had felt nothing akin to arousal or excitement then; those feelings were unknown and quite separate from his physiology.

"Will you promise not to scream and run out of the room if you do?"

Melora stared at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing. "Oh Edward," Melora said, wiping a tear from her eye and suppressing her giggles, "what did those poor people put you through?"

"The last person who took all her clothes off in the same room as me tried to sit on my lap..." Edward recalled suddenly, "but then the chair I was sitting on fell over backwards, and I thought it was a good time to leave."

Melora's jaw dropped at this. _What. The. Hell._ Suddenly Melora felt a surge of anger. Edward noticed this at once.

"What's wrong, Melora? Did I say something wrong?"

"I just...I just can't believe someone would try to do something so selfish to you...I...uh..." Melora stared down at herself. Her hands were smoking...no, they were becoming smoke! Her whole body was becoming smoke! She felt her hair—all she could feel was smoke-choked air. "Edward! Edward, help me!"

Edward watched, frightened, as the girl standing before him became tightly curling wisps of smoke, her entire form at the mercy of the drafts. Suddenly she was flesh again, clutching at her hair and thrashing her head from side to side, screaming.

"Oh god..." Melora sobbed, "what's _wrong_ with me!" she sank down onto the mattress, unable to stop herself from weeping. "That was too scary, Edward. That was too scary." Edward sat down beside her, wishing he could comfort her, put his arm around her and hold her, but he wouldn't dare try for fear of cutting into her skin. After a few moments, Melora looked up. Her face was red in a lot of places, and she wiped away from her cheeks the tears that stained them. She gave a shuddering sigh, and then smiled weakly at Edward.

"I'm sorry. That must have been just as scary for you, huh?" Edward nodded, still quite frightened. "I'm beginning to realize there are certain things I can't talk about, or else I start hallucinating really hard. I can't think of anything to do about it though, besides get back into painting again–I'm too poor to afford a therapist." Melora was shaking. "What I can't figure out is, how come you can see it too? You did see it, didn't you?"

Edward nodded again. "You turned into smoke for a second, and then you were back to normal."

Melora forced a laugh. "Maybe you were created with really special eyes, who knows how you're put together? Maybe you can see other people's thoughts if they're visual enough, and really intense."

"I don't know, Melora. I don't think so." Edward said.

Melora again wiped at the tears that threatened to spill down her face. "Yeah, I guess so. Whatever the explanation, I'm sorry I scared you like that. Really I am."

"It's ok. You're alright now."

"Thanks, Edward. I appreciate you sticking around for this stuff. Anyways, I'm going to remove a significant amount of clothing now, just to let you know." Edward nodded, but did not turn around.

Standing up, Melora first took down her hair. It cascaded down her shoulders in soft ropy strands, and let loose the scent of her shampoo from that morning. Then she removed her tanktop to reveal an undershirt, made of thinner cotton. Bending down, she undid the laces to her ankle boots and stepped out of them. Next she untied her skirt from her waist, dropping it to the floor and shoving it to the side with the rest of her clothing. Off came her pantaloons, under which she'd decided to wear a pair of traditional underwear (as opposed to, say, what Melora referred to as piano wire for the nether regions). All that was left were her socks, which came up over her knees and were black with tiny white pinstripes circling her legs. She sat down on the bed and unrolled these off over her feet, tossing the sock raviolis into the pile.

Edward had never seen someone so pale in the village below. Tanning had been the order of the day, though he never tanned no matter how long he stayed outside gardening. His skin was, after all, not really skin at all.

Melora got up once more to blow the candles out, and Edward took this as his cue to go sit against the hearth. "Good night, Edward."

"Good night, Melora."

_Please tell me what you think so far!_


	7. Chapter 7

1"_I never was a punk_

_I never shot junk_

_I never even tried it,_

_Counter culture passed me right by_

_I'm on the outside, I'm on the outside now_

_This is where it all begins on the outside looking in_

_Looking in_

_At you_

_I'm just an alien through and through_

_Tryin' to make believe I'm you_

_Tryin' to fit_

_Just a stranger on the outside looking in_

_The disco makes me sick_

_I wear the wrong clothes_

_I say the wrong things_

_You know I can't dance_

_My feet are much too wide (I'm on the outside)_

_You think you set the trends_

_You wear your hair just right_

_Your clothes are out-a-sight_

_Your house is modern really kitch_

_You get so macho when you're with your bitch_

_(I'm on the outside)"_

_-_Oingo Boingo, "On the Outside".

_A/n: _Thank you all for the feedback! Really, I appreciate every review I get, this is why I'm pumping out the chapters so fast, I don't want to lose your interest. Uh, a warning? Things are going to get weird. Not out of character, hopefully, just...really weird. Also, this chapter is hella long. The past four or so were around seven pages? Yeah, this ones a whopping 14 pages. But hey, I guess it's not a bad thing, right?

Another thing; after this chapter I may take a few days off writing (seriously, I've been writing nonstop nine-a.m. till 4 a.m. every day this week) to illustrate the story, after all, there isn't enough ES fanart out there, and I figure every reader likes reference pictures to what the author is thinking.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed slaving–er, effortlessly pouring out perfectly formed pearls of brilliance, I mean. Read and Review, please, thank you.

_I am swinging I am swinging in the stars and the moon sink in eternal night; look there's the house where's Edward? Go down, Go down, I can touch the night flowers, and in through the front door. Oh, everything's different; I can see people–moving too fast–not very clear—conveyor belts—did I find the electrical outlets yet? There they are; there's so much power in this place. Look, those wax shards, they're coming together—hands, I see them, they're hands–why? Lift up, look at the tables, I see...cookies? Lots of cookies. Endless amounts of cookies. _

_"Melora". _

_Who's calling me? I don't want to wake up yet, too tired, let me in peace. Oh, everything is so different here; people rushing round these rooms, the light changing too fast–hey, there's Edward! He's standing behind the door; he's looking at me. You can see me, Edward? No, wait, he's not standing there anymore; what's going on? Oh Edward, I never knew it had been like this. Empty room; books, candles, and Edward, lying in pieces. What happened here? Your head, Edward, your head, it stops just at the neck; I cannot make sense of all these ticking wheels below it. Ow, I've cut myself on them, I've cut myself on your hands. _

_"Melora." Edward, you spoke! That's so amazing, when you're just a head on a table! And look at this photograph, why, he looks just like you. "Melora!" Why, the man in the photograph, he's talking! But speak not too loudly, I am close to waking now. _

_I cannot make sense of what you are saying, man in the picture who looks like Edward. Speak clearly, and don't move so fast, I can't see you hardly at all. Oh, you are repeating yourself, how very kind of you to say. _

_"Melora," Is Edward's head talking as well? "Look to the north. Find my books." Your books? "Look to the north. I ran out of _time._" I'm very sorry to hear that. "Time could not save me. Save _Edward._ Look to the north. Find them. Find it, save my son." _

Melora opened her eyes. Light was filtering through the dust covered window above her head. Slowly her eyes adjusted, her vision growing darker to accommodate the brightness of the room. Melora sat up in her bed, feeling strange. "Look to the north. Find my books," she murmured. _What a bizarre dream. _

Melora lifted back the covers and stood before the hearth. Edward did not move from where he sat, his eyes open and unblinking. Melora's attention was drawn to the old photographs lining the mantle; progressively she eyed each one, noting family resemblances in the stark, mad faces of the women and the sad, shadow filled faces of the men, until she came to the last photograph. This she took with her to sit on the bed, examining it carefully. It was the photograph she'd studied just before she had spoken to Edward for the first time. The man standing in it did not speak, did not move. There was a brightness to his eyes that disturbed Melora somewhat. She looked closer. The first time she'd seen his picture, she'd thought his eyes were dark, but this was not true, she must not have studied them long enough. In fact, they were very light, probably an intense shade of blue or green.

"Melora?"

She looked up, startled. Edward was looking at her now, and for a moment she saw him with light blue eyes. Melora shook her head, and answered, "Good morning, Edward."

Edward smiled. Melora stood up and knelt down beside him. "Edward, do you recognize this person?" She asked, showing him the photograph. Edward looked closely at it. If he noticed the striking resemblance he had to the man in the photo, he didn't show it. Finally, he shook his head.

"No, I'm sorry."

Melora sighed. "Do you think you could tell me a little bit about your creator, Edward?"

Edward looked very sad. "He never woke up."

"He was very old, then, when you knew him?" Edward nodded. Melora wracked her brains for the right question to ask. Finally, she said, "Was there a reason he made you the way you are, with these–" she touched the bearings where his palms became blades "–instead of regular hands?"

Edward thought hard. It had seemed like what should have been a temporary substitute had become a permanent end to his construction. "Right before he fell asleep on the floor, he showed me the parts for my new hands. It was a gift."

"What did you do with him when he fell asleep?" Melora asked gently.

Edward shrugged slightly. "I carried him to his bed and shut the door. I thought it was what I should have done. He never came out again."

Melora gave an involuntary shudder. She remembered going into what looked to be a man's bedroom on the first night of her arrival—there was dust everywhere, and now Melora recalled that there was a peculiar scent in the air. If this was as long ago as she thought it was, of course there would be nothing left now but a skeleton and some cloth remnants nestled between the sheets. She silently thanked the heavens she'd not decided to sleep there that first night.

Melora debated whether or not to tell Edward about her dream. Melora finally decided it would be against her better judgement, at least for now, to get ahead of herself. Once she moved in, Melora reasoned, she would do some digging around. For now, there were so many things to do in the mean time that she hardly could think of following a dream's whimsy.

Melora pulled on her pantaloons, and motioned for Edward to follow her downstairs. Reaching the living room, Melora opened her suitcase and took out one of her own dresses.

"Have you any idea the sort of bland clothes the Ashtons have asked me to wear?" Melora complained mildly, slipping the sleeveless dress over her head. It had a grey checked pattern crisscrossing it, and a ruffled black trim on the hem, coming down to her knees. It was very full, and tied in the back to make a bow at her waist. The lace of her bloomers just barely showed. From her suitcase she pulled a pair of soft looking dark grey socks that went all the way to her thighs, but she scrunched them down to her knees, rippling around her calves. Lastly she extracted a flattened pair of kitten heeled pumps and donned them, taking the time to gather all her hair into a loose bun hanging over her shoulder. The effect was a little Amish, but that suited Melora's tastes just fine.

"So! I'm going to go into town and get some breakfast and some more supplies. I should be gone about an hour or two. Sound ok?"

Edward nodded, smiling. She would return, he knew that now. And no longer did the thought of living with someone else frightened him. Melora was different from everyone else he'd met. They could just be different together.

The town below sped by as Melora cheerfully hummed the tune to a New Order song, waving at the children who stared at her from their lawns. It was just starting to get hot when she parked her scooter near the Safeway, which was located in the main shopping plaza. Going inside, she got a few strange looks for her appearance, but on this day nothing would make Melora feel inferior about herself.

_Things are going so smoothly, and I'm very lucky to have someone as extraordinary as Edward as a friend and room mate. I should do something for him, something to thank him for all his generosity. I'll think of something more special later, but maybe he'll enjoy one if I buy an extra apple strudel for him. _Melora thought, grabbing a shopping basket and putting in two boxes of freshly baked apple turnovers. She proceeded to buy cereal, flour, baking soda and baking powder, vanilla extract, pasta, butter, milk, juice, eggs, all the regular ingredients in most of the recipes she knew. Melora also bought several bags of ice to put in the ice box, otherwise she feared things would spoil. Thinking quickly, Melora bought a super-pack of straws for Edward to use as often as he could. At the checkout line, people stared at her, but Melora wasn't too sure why. Sure, she was dressed a little differently, but was that really reason enough to stare at somebody? The young boys especially were looking at her in a funny way, but it wasn't meant to be mean. The young girls, however, were looking at Melora like she was a threat. _What on earth have they got to stare at me for? Is being a stranger here really that big of a deal? I've been here a month already!_

Melora paid and left, but once she was outside she was feeling better. She headed for the post office, where they seemed a little more polite about the looks.

"I'd like to apply for a mailing address, please." They gave her the necessary forms, which she filled out to the best of her ability. As she handed them in, the woman at the desk asked, "will you be installing your mailbox at the top or at the bottom of the hill?"

Melora raised an eyebrow. _How the heck would she know where I live already?_ "The bottom. Wouldn't want to inconvenience your mailmen into having to drive all the way up the driveway and have to look at such a ghastly sight as an abandoned house on a hill." Melora said a bit sharply, and then left.

She made her way to the hardware store, and bought a hammer and a large package of nails. Once at the cash register, the young man behind asked, "So, how's moving in going?" He sounded a little nervous.

"What, does everybody in this town know each other's business?" Melora exclaimed.

The man looked embarrassed. "I suppose so. I heard it from my sister first, she works at the library where she met a kid who said he knew you."

_Christ._ "Brian got himself to the library, well, good for him. Moving in is going fine. I'll be out of the Ashton's hair before they know it, and after that I probably wont leave the house much, save for work and to buy supplies, so I expect I'll be out of your's and everyone else's hair soon enough as well." Melora ended this on a slightly acid note.

Melora returned to the house on the hill with groceries in tow, looking a bit miffed. Edward greeted her brightly, but his smile faded when he saw the look on her face.

"What's wrong, Melora?"

"I had no idea privacy didn't exist anymore!" Melora lamented. "Everybody knows my business these days. It's intolerable, for the looks they give me. I can't begin to imagine the way they must have treated you when you went down there!"

Fear gripped Edwards heart. "Then, they know that you're living with me?" He sounded so afraid.

"Oh, no, Edward, I really doubt it. They just want to know all about the new freak moving into the creepy house on the creepy hill." Melora sighed, "as if they have nothing better to do with themselves." Melora remembered the breakfast in her bag, and cheered a little. Pulling a box of the apple turnovers out, she showed them to Edward. "Hungry?"

While it was true that Edward did not need to eat, food did taste wonderful to him, and so he followed Melora into the kitchen to sit down at the table. Holding her own apple strudel in one hand while feeding him his, Melora talked about what she wanted to accomplish that day. Edward chewed slowly, savoring the first food he'd eaten in years, listening contentedly to her. When both apple turn-overs were gone, Melora sat for a moment longer, gazing at Edward. Edward wondered why she was looking at him so long, but then she got up and held a paper towel to his face, daintily wiping away the bits of sugar and crust at the corners of his mouth. She smiled, and said, "I don't care what those people down there think. I come here, and it's like they never existed. That'll never change."

The morning went by at a leisurely pace, neither of them feeling any need to rush the chores. Together they stocked the pantry and the icebox with Melora's groceries. Then Melora took one of the larger bed sheets, the step ladder, and her hardware supplies, and went to the corner parallel to the conveyor belts. "Edward, would it be ok if I used this corner as my studio? I'd have to nail these sheets into the wall, as a sort of tarp. The sheets would probably cover this door." Melora said, motioning to the door that led to the deceased inventor's bedroom.

Edward didn't mind at all. He had not the reservations of most people when it came to driving nails into pristine, wallpapered surfaces. Stretching the huge white sheet across the two walls that made up that particular corner, Melora hammered a nail through the fabric into each facing surface. The sheet pooled on the floor, and Melora stretched it out to cover a large portion of it. She nailed another sheet to the wall beside it, pulling this to lie flat against the surface this time. Then she took two more nails and drove them into the wall to make two points coming up to her hips, forming a support for her larger canvases that would not fit on a regular easel. Melora then spread the rest of the sheet over the ground, and took from her suitcase all the small, compact art supplies she'd been able to bring. She lay these on a nearby table, arranging her paints and brushes neatly.

"I'll have to buy a cheap easel eventually, but honestly I can do really awesome things with just the cardboard I find in the dumpster." Melora said, eyeballing her work. Edward was mystified by all of it; he'd never seen anyone paint and so did not understand how a studio really worked. "Friend of mine back at school taught me how to go dumpster diving. She was hilarious; she was this tiny stick bug of a girl, who always wore these floppy hats and listened to Neutral Milk Hotel, I'd see her skinny little legs sticking straight up out of the dumpster as I walked by, and I'd have to help her out of one from time to time." Melora laughed, "she wouldn't have gotten stuck all the time if once in a while she'd let go of whatever she was trying to pull out. I loved her art, though."

Edward listened to Melora, and though he didn't understand a lot of what she was saying, it fascinated him that for the first time she was talking about something from her past. She was quiet for a long time after that, facing away from Edward, her weight shifted to one leg, her arms crossed over her chest, looking at the white and pastel expanse of bedding before her. Eventually she turned around and smiled faintly. "Shall we proceed to the second floor, then?"

They brought up the cleaning supplies in a pail and began with the hallway, and it was then that Melora devised a way to make Edward feel productive. She instructed him to hold out his scissorhands, and around one she wrapped several old pillowcases that she'd found in a closet. "Try not to move your blades too much, and this way you can twirl up the cobwebs and mop up the dust on the bannister." Edward was overjoyed to finally have something active to do, and began right away to dust every surface, going between the rails of the stairway and ridding them of the spider webs. As for Melora, she speed-mopped up and down the hallway, and polished the tarnish from the mirrors. What a difference it made to have a clear, sparkling like new mirror hanging over one's hearth!

"Melora?" Edward called from the stairway.

"Yes, Edward?" she responded, poking her head out from her room.

"Thanks for the apple turnover this morning." He smiled, coming up the stairs to meet her. Melora laughed and said he was welcome, now would he like to dust in there?

"I'm going to have to clean out the fireplace before I mop; probably should get the bed out of here 'fore I do anything else," said Melora, and while Edward dusted the mantle with his mitt, she bent low and lifted the bed on its side, grunting with effort, and pushed it out the door and into the hallway. "First thing I'm doing, once I've got some free time, is painting this ugly box frame," Melora panted, "pine boxes are for the recently deceased. I fancy myself a prettier coffin than that!"

Coming back inside with the bucket of cleaning supplies and a pan to sweep the dust and ashes into, Melora knelt beside the fireplace and began to sweep. The houses from back them generally had a fireplace in every room, with no central heating. Melora had been thankful the fireplace in the living room needed no cleaning, having been hardly ever used.

"I can do that, if you want me to." Edward said, looking down from his dusting.

"You can?" Melora looked up, surprised. He nodded, and held out his mitted scissorhand. Curious, Melora undid the cloth wrapping and handed him the pan and short broom. Grasping the pan and the broom delicately with the blade where his thumb would have been, he knelt down and began to sweep the ashes into the pan. It wasn't as graceful as Melora's sweeping, certainly, but he held the objects steadily and took his time getting all the ash out.

"That's great, Edward!" Melora exclaimed. "Think you can keep that up while I dust this place?" he nodded. Melora stood and continued dusting the walls and behind the tattered, musty drapes. The room was of average size, with a low ceiling and grey walls. There was a curved pan next to the hearth for storing firewood, and there was a small mahogany chest of drawers for clothes and such, which Melora cleaned very thoroughly. Once Edward was done sweeping up all the ashes, Melora took them outside into the garden to spread.

She returned to mop the floor and wash the windows. The room clean, Melora pushed the bed back into the room and stepped back. They admired their handiwork, and then moved to the bathroom.

"Why is it always that the bathrooms prove to be the worst horrors of all?" Melora groaned. It was spare, with a deep claw-foot tub against the wall, a toilet and a sink, and a small little table for soap and shampoo next to the tub. "Whatever sort of person lived here last, they sure liked things spare." Melora grumbled.

The entire room was filled with spider-webs; Melora could not take a lighted candle into the room without a few going up in a brief spark of flame. This gave her the idea to simply ignite the many cobwebs, it took less time than wiping them away. This she did, particularly in the tub, where the long-dead spiders had made a veritable city.

"Any chance you could dust some?" Melora asked Edward. He nodded, and held out a bladed appendage for a mitt. While he dusted the porcelain, Melora tested the toilet to see if it flushed. There was a rumbling sound, and for a moment Melora feared she'd broken it. The toilet did indeed flush finally, even if the water that came back up was dark orange with rust. The sink was a newer model than the one in the kitchen, with actual knobs and a faucet. _Of course, the bathtub only has a drain; no handy-dandy faucet for me to get water from, _thought Melora.

They mopped the floors and scrubbed the grime from the bathtub and sink, Melora polished the mirror to sparkling, and put fresh candles in their holders (there was a large supply of white taper candles in the linen closet on that floor).

Melora had not eaten lunch, but found she was not very hungry and so continued to work. The way the house was looking after their care, it really excited her. It was long past lunchtime when they finished the bathroom, and now Melora took the clothes from her suitcase and folded them neatly into the drawers of the mahogany chest in her room. Once she'd accomplished this, Melora asked Edward if he'd like to take a short break with her.

They went downstairs to sit on the couch, tired from it all, but feeling very satisfied with themselves. "It's too bad I can't cook anything yet; at some point we should go exploring in the woods behind the house and see if we can make a decent find for fallen logs and such. I noticed there's a shed out back, I'm guessing for gardening tools and the like–maybe there's an axe I can use. I also need to start saving up for a sewing machine, a nice mechanical one that's simple and that wont break any time soon. I've got no clothes for the winter, so I'll have to do some thrifting then, but I would really like to make myself a nice cloak for the outdoors. They're simple to do; I'd just need a pattern and some fabric, obviously..." Melora rambled idly, opening her suitcase again to take out her old artwork and lay it around her designated studio space.

Edward half-listened, standing to examine her pieces more closely. Most of them were the same size, and completely covered with color and dark forms. Here was one where the paint was applied thickly, coming together to recognizably look like Melora herself, only it was just her head, sewn crudely onto a large white bird's body. Her eyes were closed, as if peaceably dreaming, a faint smile on her lips. The contrast between her blissful expression and the horrific surgery that had taken place seemed to strike a chord in Edward. Here was one where a girl stood, half realized in very thin paint, her face missing and her skirt gold and in tatters. She appeared to be standing among gold clouds, and flowers fell from beneath her skirt, landing between her ankles. Here was another that had no definite subject, it was haunting and abstract, and Edward found he could relate to it very strongly. There was another one with someone who could have been Melora, but wrapped in a shroud with large red angel's wings beating at the air. Her shroud was smoking and at her feet lay a fire; it seemed the angel was singing, ignoring the fire that threatened to consume her. There were countless others, golden and luminous, others like a storm cloud, still others like nothing he'd ever seen before. The people in her paintings were almost always female, and were always disfigured in some way–here one had insect wings where her arms should have been; there one had the lower body of a deer, arrows piercing it from all directions, one girl had a gaping hole where her face should have been, revealing only an empty chamber with tiny red flowers nestled in the bottom, cascading out down the front of her dress like a waterfall. Here was one girl who was naked, and instead of a head she had a reindeer skull..

They fascinated Edward. Most of them he could not make any sense of, but he found himself _wanting_ to, desperately. From what sort of soul did these bizarre, fantastical expressions come from? In what earth did these plants grow? Whatever the clime, Edward would that he could walk in that garden. They were so unlike anything he'd seen before, and yet for some reason they so resembled the feelings he'd tried to express in his gardening, in all of his mediums. Here was a frighteningly clear mirror into Melora's past, for she had made all of these paintings before she came there.

As if to verify what Edward was thinking, Melora said, "These are the strongest link I have to my past. Looking at them now, they are a key to why I seem to have gone insane, why I have ended up where I have. If ever I want to solve that mystery, I need to keep painting; nail down my deepest fears and emotions to the cross of canvas so that my mind can keep free and uncluttered, and I may closer examine that which troubles me so."

She sighed, turning around to face Edward. "No time to paint now, right Edward? Lots of work to do." He said nothing, only gazed at her with an unreadable expression. Melora went ahead and began climbing the stairs. After a moment, Edward followed her.

Melora took to exploring the other rooms of the house. Mostly she found dark, cluttered storage rooms, filled to the brim with dusty machinery, or empty laboratories. Melora didn't think she really needed to devote any energy to cleaning these rooms, after all, she'd never use them. They also, for some reason, made her feel nervous. Finally, Melora came to the last door. Pushing it open, Melora gasped. Within stood what must have been the previous owner's study; to one wall was a massive book case, lined with row upon row of tomes. Perpendicular to this wall was a large desk, covered in small little things like globes and jars and butterfly display cases, and one or two crumbling candles. The room was illuminated by a single, gothic window. The light filtered into the room, where it was cast against the far wall to rest upon an antique, cast iron sewing machine and table.

"Oh Edward, it's perfect!" Melora cried, rushing over to the ancient machine and turning the side wheel, watching the needle rise and fall with delight. Edward smiled, but his face was shrouded with nostalgia. He'd never entered this room since his creator had died; the sight of that working table brought on strong the memory of lying half assembled upon it while the inventor read to him.

"Edward, do you like to read?" Melora asked, brushing the dust off the spines of the books as she studied them.

"I can't."

"You were never taught?" Melora asked, surprised.

"I just...can't." He held out his arms, hoping this would be enough explanation.

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry, that never occurred to me." Melora said, "would you like sometime to be read to?"

"Yes, very much." Edward said softly.

Dusting, washing, brooming, mopping, Melora and Edward at last cleaned the single remaining useful room in the house. When they were done, Melora couldn't help but do a little victory dance. There were so many things she still had to do, and so many things she wanted to do, like paint and sew and cook delicious meals for Edward and herself.

They opted to celebrate the house's renewal by spending an hour in the grass of the front lawn. Melora suddenly felt very giddy and began to roll around, laughing. Edward watched, amused, as she spent her energy turning over and over again on the lawn, seeing how far across it she could get by this method. When finally Melora lay flat on her back, a little bruised and euphoric, she exclaimed, "I never thought finishing to clean a house could feel so orgasmic!" and began to laugh again. Catching her breath after a few moments, she looked over to Edward, who was lying on his stomach, his upper half propped by his elbows, only a few feet away. She said, "Edward, in an hour, wake me up, and we'll go into the woods and see if we can find some wood for burning." She then closed her eyes, nestled herself a bit into the grass, her arms spread out at her sides, her hair loosened from its bun to spill over the green. A moment later she opened her eyes and said to Edward, "by the way, an hour is three thousand six hundred seconds. So just...wake me up when you get bored and want to go do something." She closed her eyes and did not open them.

Edward got up and attended to his flower beds and hedge sculptures, always keeping an eye on the monochromatic human draped so artistically on his grass. It gave him time to reflect. With the house clean, it would not be long before Melora set up her permanent residence there. Was he still nervous? Edward had to admit it–he was. Mainly because it was so very different from all he'd ever known. He could not possibly prepare himself for what lay ahead. Nothing would feel familiar to him. Certainly, he'd lived with humans before. But never had one expressed such openness to what he could and could not do in life. Never had Kim or the Avon Lady spoken to him with such sincerity and frankness about the way of things. How could Melora acknowledge his uniqueness one moment and then treat him as her total equal the next? How could she do this so effortlessly, so that with her he forgot that he'd ever spent so many years in isolation, he forgot how very different he was?

The answer came to him, quite suddenly, while snipping at a bush. Kim, the Avon Lady, all their neighbors, had belonged to a society, which was defined in Edward's mind as a sort of group or tribe that worked best when in total harmony and conformity, when every member of it followed the same rules. Melora, like Edward, did not belong to any society. They were not part of any tribe, and so on their own they could make their own rules. It was a Boschian garden of delights, while outside of society–one could do anything, commit any crime, indulge in any fantasy, with a total lack of guilt as long as they did not go against their own morals. They could not break any rules, for there were none. But once outside society, it is very hard to get into it. You can only pretend that you really were always part of it, and try your best to adopt their rules for the time you are there. Two separate worlds, and never the twain shall meet.

Of course, these thoughts did not present them in so articulated a manner to Edward. Words like Boschian and twain were not in his vocabulary, neither were concepts like garden of earthly delights, and the conformism within a tribe. Their underlying meanings were there, and they came together in Edward's mind much to the same effect, but in a subtler, slower way. The more he studied Melora, the more he understood his situation. Yet Melora had an advantage–somehow, she managed to live amongst them in relative peace. She went about them as a lion might go about a herd of wildebeest, as long as she kept her weirdness to herself, the herd would not disperse.

Melora seemed to be doing fine, and so Edward moved to the side of the house, trimming the hedges here and there, sometimes stopping to take simple delight in watching a ladybug climb a leaf. He liked Melora's company, that was for certain. She had so many dreams for the future, and she was so confident about achieving them. It didn't matter that she would always be poor; and it didn't even seem to matter to her if she was crazy or not. And she made Edward feel important, not because he could give her a beautiful haircut, or because he could make beautiful sculptures, and it certainly wasn't because he was some perverse fascination for her. He was important because he was her friend, and she could talk about anything with him. If only Edward had the articulation to voice his thoughts like Melora did. All he could do was hint at them through his very limited forms of self-expression.

An hour must have passed this way before Edward heard Melora's urgent call: "Edward!" Quickly he ran around to the front of the lawn, hoping nothing was wrong. He stopped short when he saw Melora.

She lay before him, looking at him calmly, yet at the same time she wore an amazed, almost panicked expression. She was resting on what looked to be a roman couch, made entirely of vines, twigs, and foliage. The couch floated on four thick, braided stalks sprouting from the ground. Melora was at eye level with Edward. He came closer, looking frightened and hoping that she would say something to explain it.

"I don't know how it happened, Edward..." she whispered, afraid that if she spoke too loudly the couch would crumble beneath her and she would fall. As it was, the leafy thing was swaying a little in the breeze. "I was asleep, I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find myself like this!" Her hands were gripping the couch, and she was being as still as she could..

Edward bent closer to examine the bizarre plant-couch. Little pink buds showed on the vines. It all looked very eerie, unnatural and impossible. Melora gave a little shriek as the couch's stalks withdrew sharply into the ground, but then they stopped a few feet from the ground. "How did this couch get here?" Melora panted. "Don't touch it, Edward."

The pair were still for a few moments, neither of them daring to say or do anything. Then a look of resolve came over Melora's face, and slowly she sat up on the couch. Her hair had flowers and branches tangled in it, and it came about her face wildly. She carefully angled her legs to dangle over the edge, and closed her eyes.

Edward waited, anxiously hoping nothing worse would happen. Was this some sort of extreme hallucination?

As Melora sat, concentrating, the couch dropped jerkily a few inches, the vines that supported it were shrinking. Sweat broke out on her face. Slowly, carefully, the couch lowered itself to the ground, and then unbraided itself to disappear into the grass. Melora now sat flat on the grass, her legs outstretched before her. She opened her eyes.

"Did you see that?" Melora said breathlessly, "It was a hallucination, and I controlled it!" She climbed shakily to her feet. "I can make things happen!"

She looked up as she saw Edward move to try and help her, to maybe touch her reassuringly, but then he stopped, lowering his arms. Instead he said, "Are you ok?"

Melora nodded. She was pale, and her hair looked a mess but she said, "yes. I think so."

"I was afraid." Edward simply said.

Again Melora nodded. "I'm sorry. It's like every time I get relaxed something weird happens. I'm sorry I scared you like that." She pulled her hair tie from her wrist and tried to get her hair into a bun.

"Did you dream of a couch?" Edward asked.

"Actually, yeah, at one point. It was so brief, though, I didn't even remember till you asked." Melora said.

"Do you still want to go into the woods?" Edward said, snipping his scissorhands in nervous anticipation.

"We need to, anyways." said Melora, "and we need to go often, at least until we can have a good supply in store.

And this they did, though both seemed on guard for anything else that could spring from the ground and ensnare them. Melora especially felt nervous; the last time she'd walked in the woods, she had been swept deep into it, never to return to her former life.

Edward followed very close to Melora, holding the fallen logs she found in his arms. Melora had stressed the importance of having kindling on hand at all times, and so she cut large amounts of golden-rod and milkweed where she found it growing, and smaller twigs besides. Often Melora would come to a large fallen branch from the full grown trees, and this she would laboriously chop into segments with the axe she'd found in the shed. There was no path, of course. It seemed like no one had walked these woods in a very long time; often Edward would have to snip the brambles that would seek to trap Melora by her dress. At first the going was quiet, but this unnerved her. Normally it wouldn't, but it seemed so awkward after the affair of the floating plant-couch.

"Edward, do you think I'm crazy?" Melora asked as she bent down to pick up a large piece of wood.

"No. You just see things." Edward said, "and I see them too."

Melora looked back at him; his studded leather suit absorbed all the sunlight around him, and yet Edward did not perspire. Melora suddenly wondered if Edward did not have skin below his neck, that the suit was all that kept his insides together. It seemed likely, the way it was so tightly belted everywhere.

"That's a very sagacious observation, Edward.," Melora said, placing the log into her basket, "and I think I should take it to heart—that is, no longer should I let my fear reign over my control of the situation. I see things, and while I may not be able to turn this condition off, I may learn to control it one day." Suddenly Melora set her basket down and declared: "No, I say! I will not let my fear of being crazy drive me insane! From this day forth I shall welcome all hallucinations as guests in the house of my head and eyes, and we shall live in harmony forever after!"

Edward was at first afraid, and then the absurdness of her little speech caught up with him and it was then he wished he could clap and cheer. Instead he just grinned and Melora laughed and cheered for herself.

Deeper into the woods they trekked, till they had filled their arms with firewood and had to turn back. Melora was reminded of an old song she knew, and so began to sing softly as they walked. "...when Friday comes, we'll all call rats fish..." The walk was mostly uphill, and it seemed the woods stretched on forever in all directions. How bizarre that only a mile or so away was a perfectly manicured suburbia!

Halfway back to the mansion, and just as Melora's song finished, she looked up and noticed the sky was awfully dark for the time of day.

"Uh..." Melora stopped abruptly, and Edward bumped into her, he'd been listening so intently on her song he hadn't realized she'd stopped walking.

"Melora?" he asked. He looked up then as well. The sky seemed swollen to bursting, dark like an overripe plum. Thunder began to roll within those low threatening clouds, and in just a moment they would pierce themselves open upon the branches of the trees...

Melora dropped her basket and ripped her dress off, throwing it over the wood just as the sky fell in a torrent down upon their heads. It was too late for Edward's drenched firewood, but still he held it cradled in his arms as they ran for the house.

They arrived, thunder and lightning clashing in the heavens above, and Melora quickly pushed open the front doors. Once inside, they looked to each other. Edward's hair was hanging down around his face, trickling rain onto his already drenched suit. Everywhere he dripped water onto the floor. Melora wasn't in much better shape; her hair was like a wet mop down her back, and her underclothes were sopping wet. Her shoes made squelching sounds as she wiggled her toes inside them.

The house was dark, so Melora made quick work of lighting a few candles to see by. "It sure is pouring out there," Melora said, "that's not going to let up any time soon. Thank goodness I saved at least one batch of firewood; though yours isn't lost, Edward, it'll dry after a day or two. You can set it in the basin next to the fireplace if you want."

Edward was glad to hear this, though he was a little embarrassed that his suit made squelching noises as he walked. Melora just giggled and draped her soggy dress over the edge of the sink to dry. The firewood in her basket was mostly dry, the dress had absorbed the worst of it. She took a log and some kindling and arranged it on the grate of the fireplace. Taking a candle, she lit the milkweed, which in turn ignited the goldenrod, which after a moment caught the small twigs, and then in a while there was a cheerful fire blazing. Melora smiled at the sight; the first hearth fire in her new home, and completely the result of her and Edward's labor.

Granted, it was still pretty early to be lighting fires, it was August after all, but Melora figured it would help them dry off, and would add extra light.

"Edward, I'm going to take off these wet clothes and dry off with one of those bed sheets. Sorry I haven't bought any towels yet, I'll make sure to do that soon." Melora said, still feeling a little weird to be saying it. "I'll put on a long shirt and then I'll help you dry off, what do you say?"

"Ok, Melora." Edward said. He didn't seem embarrassed or shy about it at all, though something inside him told Edward he probably should have been. However, his lack of protestation convinced Melora, and soon all her clothes were either draped over the edge of the sink, or on the railing that crossed the top of the fireplace. She was pale all over, and totally at ease with herself as she walked naked to the pile of bed sheets behind the couch. Picking one, she briskly rubbed herself down. She wrapped it around herself once and then unwrapped it to wind around her head into a sort of turban, the end of the sheet hanging down to trail at the backs of her knees. As she did this, Edward watched, curious about the construction of her body. She had hair elsewhere besides her head—two light, barely noticeable tufts under her arms, and a triangle of it between her legs. A fine down of hair covered her calves. She was rounder than Edward, her thighs were long and thicker than his. Her hips were wider than his, and her waist came in more. Upon her chest were two small globes of flesh (these he'd seen in abundance when he'd lived in the village below, but never this pale nor this revealed), with little pink circles on them, the size of pennies maybe. He studied how her skin in some places had a good layer of fat on it, and in others it stuck to her bones—this intrigued him, for he had no skeleton to speak of. Her feet fascinated him, so close in build to her hands but longer and lacking opposable thumbs. Her toes did little else but help her keep balance, he noticed; they could not do any of the complicated tasks she put to her hands so often.

Understand, he did not–could not–feel any erotic desire for her body, now so vulnerable to his gaze. A baser man may not believe this, but it was true. Edward lacked the pith and part to tint his vision so; and so his observations remained innocent. He was still aware of the secrets other women guarded jealously, the supposed modesty required of all women. It seemed a silly convention, perhaps even a dangerous one—for is modesty not often confused with pride, and pride the blade that hurt those in the village who wished to peer beneath his suit for their own selfish motives? Was it not pride that led the rumor to be circulated, that Edward was a predator among the young attractive ladies of suburbia? Of course such a rumor was laughable in the face of the truth; one cannot attack with the sword one does not even have in the first place.

Melora ascended the stairs to go find a shirt; a few minutes later she came back down wearing a simple white night-shirt reaching to her knees. She reached into her suitcase and pulled out a brush and a wide-toothed comb, and gathered a dry sheet into her arms before she sat down beside Edward. The fire seemed to be slowly drying Edward's soggy leather, but Melora feared for his shears and so took each hand in turn to her lap to carefully dab the water off each blade. Once this was done, she asked Edward if he would allow her to dry and comb his hair. At this his eyes lit up, and he readily agreed to sit for this.

"After all," Melora giggled as she knelt behind him, facing the fire, "you've got the rest of your life to let it get back to the rat's nest it was before." At first Edward sat straight, his neck stiff as Melora took the bed sheet to it, squeezing out all the water (and there was a lot), but gradually he relaxed more and more to lean back against her. After his hair had been tousled into mere dampness, Melora did what she'd always been taught to do to avoid damaging hair: first she combed her fingers through it, taking out the small tangles easily. His hair was thick and felt somehow stronger than normal hair, like it was spun from a combination of silk and steel. After she'd run her fingers through as much as she could, Melora took the wide toothed comb and combed away from his scalp, starting at the ends and working her way up. She met some resistance here, and asked frequently if she was hurting him, but he simply said not to worry about it. She worked through the tangles steadily, patiently, until she could run the comb through his hair without a problem. Melora then took the boar-bristled brush and worked in the same fashion, spending a long time on the matted clumps that the comb had missed, and working from the bottom of the hair up to the root. After all the tangles were out, Melora figured what was good for a girl's hair was good for a man's, and so spent the next twenty minutes giving Edward's hair a good hundred strokes of the brush, idly talking about random things that would enter her mind. Edward was too relaxed to respond, usually. Once the hundredth stroke was up, all the dampness had left his hair, and Melora brushed his long hair into its natural side part, coming down to curl behind his ears.

"All done." Melora said, setting aside the brush. After a moment, Edward slowly rose to go look in the bathroom mirror upstairs. When he came back, Melora was struck by the eerie semblance he had to the man in the photograph. "Do you like it, Edward? If not I can always back comb it to all hell."

"Would you brush it again afterwards if you did?" Edward asked. Melora burst into laughter at this–he'd looked so sincere when he said it.

"I like it." Edward added after a moment. "I look like I did when he was still my creator. Thank you."

"Edward, did your creator...did you ever know his name?" Melora asked.

Edward thought hard about this. Finally he said, "I think once he said his name was...Vincent."

"Vincent." Melora repeated, memorizing it, "I think Vincent must have been a wonderful man if he had the heart to create a person like you, Edward."

Melora resolved that for nights like these, she'd buy several down comforters for the rugs, get some pillows and blankets, and maybe a good book to read to Edward. Edward seemed very happy at the mention of this plan.

"Fore I do that, though, I'll make some super strong, super soft mittens for you, yeah? That way we can share the blankets." Melora said, and then Edward was very excited to think of the possibility that he could be close to someone without hurting them.

"I think I would like that very much, if you could make something like that." Edward said softly, as Melora got a fire going for the stove. She herself was thrilled to be cooking for the first time for just the two of them, and re-located the drying clothes to the banister.

"I hope the Ashtons aren't worried; I had meant to have supper with them and stay the rest of the weekend, including Monday. I'm going to need the next two days to plan and set up the vegetable garden," Melora held a large can of vegetable beef soup for Edward to swiftly pierce with a sharp blade, "I guess they'll have to assume I got stuck in the rain and am doing fine here on my own."

For dinner, Melora had no place-mats, but she set a table for two, placing a candle between them, and poured fruit juice in both their glasses, positioning a straw both in Edward's glass and in his bowl. Melora was thankful she'd thought to buy those jumbo straws, else Edward would have trouble getting to the vegetables in his soup.

They ate mostly in silence, Melora admiring Edward's new hairdo from across the table while it rained and thundered outside, and Edward reveling in the taste of hot food at last. After supper, Melora cleared the table and washed the dishes in the sink, scrubbing the pot that she'd boiled the soup in. Once the kitchen was clean and the fire put out, Melora went upstairs to brush her teeth and wash her face. Edward again sat on a pillow by the hearth and dozed while Melora slept peacefully not a few feet away, a peaceful rest filled only with dreams of the bright future.


	8. Chapter 8

A/n: Sorry this took so long to post; I have had a lot of people calling on me to be social on top of my usual dates. I know the story is very slow so far; the next few chapters should speed things up a bit, so you won't have to be patient much longer.

I've had people ask me if I resemble Melora at all. The answer is yes–and this is probably a large setback in my skill as a writer. She, at the best of times, is a combination of myself and my two best girlfriends. At the worst, it is not so much self-insertion as it is a way to relate to her. I have trouble writing characters who are very different from myself simply because I only keep a few very close friends who are all similar to myself, or I to them, in some way. This sort of narcissism is probably very typical of people my age. Many of my original characters resemble myself in some way, but I have (thankfully) many facets, so my original characters never appear to be the same person. Look at the other fanfic I have up to see what I mean.

So, I shall be honest with you—yes, I spend a lot of my free time naked. Yes, I am an artist; though I actually go to an art school to study it, painting like a hermit in my studio on cardboard boxes is only a pastime. Yes, I am constantly bombarded by strange pictures—but never so real as what Melora goes through. I do dress like Melora, and yes I spend a lot of time at the thrift store. Some of my speech mannerisms resemble hers, but I've changed her dialogue some. Melora actually is partly inspired by Benny and Joon, one of Mr. Depp's wonderful movies. I have left little references to it in here, but no one so far has picked up. She is all of Benny's awkward joi de vivre coupled with Joon's artistic intensity. Sadly, I only wish I had a blue scooter. I have thought of...simplifying her words, making her sound more trendy or possibly 'with it', but I'm afraid my attempts were pretty awkward and I was sure I'd get nothing but mocking laughter from my readers should I have published it. Please understand, I am not Melora. I am a tenth of her. She is the sum of the dreams and words of many through me, and I often wish I could possess a tenth of her kindness. Hopefully, knowing this, you can still see Melora as a worthy original character, one good enough for the friendship of the ever enigmatic Edward.

That being said, there are more illustrations up:

http / www. deviantart. com / deviation / 37378275 / —Melora, full color.

http / www. deviantart. com / deviation / 37729641 / ----full shot of Edward in suit, B&W.

"_It doesn't hurt me._

_Do you want to feel how it feels?_

_Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?_

_Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?_

_You, it's you and me._

_You don't want to hurt me,_

_But see how deep the bullet lies._

_Unaware I'm tearing you asunder._

_Ooh, there is thunder in our hearts._

_Is there so much hate for the ones we love?_

_Tell me, we both matter, don't we?_

_You, it's you and me._

_It's you and me won't be unhappy._

_And if I only could,_

_I'd make a deal with God,_

_And I'd get him to swap our places,_

_Be running up that road,_

_Be running up that hill,_

_Be running up that building,_

_Say, if I only could, oh..."_

_Kate Bush, "Running Up that Hill" (See also Faith and the Muse's version) _

That morning, Melora decided it would be best if she went down and had breakfast with the Ashtons, so as not to worry them. When she arrived, Mike seemed a little surprised to see her wearing her old clothes, but Mr. and Mrs. Ashton just were glad that she was alright. Around the table, Melora told them of her progress, leaving out any details of Edward of course. The Ashtons were impressed with Melora's hard work, and asked her if she'd be having a cookout to celebrate her moving in.

"A cookout?" Melora looked a little incredulous, "I don't think so. I'm not really...uh, I mean, I don't really know anybody in the neighborhood."

The Ashtons talked amongst themselves on this, but Melora didn't stay to hear the rest. Finishing her breakfast quickly, she asked if she could see the phone book. Flipping to the electrical services, Melora made short work of calling up BGE and setting up power to the house. They offered to send a serviceman to check to outlets and the fuse box, but Melora assured them that it was not necessary. Hanging up, Melora felt a rush of excitement—electricity at last!

She decided that a trip to the salvation army and Jo-Anne's fabrics was in order. The day was hot and muggy from the night's rain, and Melora enjoyed riding her scooter through the puddles in the sidewalk. _Life will truly be a carefree thing when I move in with Edward._

Once at the Salvation Army, Melora parked her scooter and dismounted. She was about to enter when she heard agitated voices behind her. Turning around. Melora saw across the street about three boys and a girl. The girl was tall, with long red hair and a fair complexion. She was clutching library books in one arm, in the other she held a grocery bag. She was upset; Melora could see that the boys were taunting her. Melora paused at her scooter, watching the scene, wondering if she should intervene. _It's not my fight. I shouldn't get involved with these people too much._ Melora thought. Before she could turn back around, however, Melora saw one of the boys reach out and shove the girl's books out of her arm. The books fell on the wet sidewalk, and Melora could see the girl was red faced and trying very hard not to cry as she bent down to retrieve them. It was when Melora saw the boys kicking the library books out of reach that she abandoned her resolve not to involve herself, and with a kick was sailing towards them on her scooter.

Perhaps one of the boys saw her coming, the other two too absorbed in taunting the girl on the ground. Melora wheeled up to the side of the girl and leveled her eyes at the three. "That is quite enough, I think," Melora said sternly.

"What are you going to do about it, huh?" One of the boys said. Melora calculated that he was perhaps a Junior in highschool, like his friends. "The new freak comes to rescue the old freak, how touching."

"Oh, how very big of you–three boys against a girl with her hands full." Melora spat, "I suppose next you'll be picking on old ladies with walkers."

"Paula's a freak—ain't you, Paula?" Paula was scrambling to gather her muddy books to herself. As she left hurriedly, the boys began shouting taunts over Melora's shoulder: "Fucking dyke!" "Stupid lesbo!"

"Now listen up!" Melora shouted loudly, the vein in her forehead showing, "next time I see you picking on her, or any other girl who's minding her own business, I'll give you what you've got coming!"

This seemed too much for them, so one of the boys stepped close to Melora, "I think you'd better stay out of our way–" he gave Melora a little push on her shoulder, and she rolled her eyes at this gorilla like display "–or _you'll_ get what's coming to you."

"I think you may be right..." Melora suddenly said thoughtfully, "I think I will get what's coming to me–namely, I'm going to get all your girlfriends together, and I'm going to make them forget they ever loved a man better than a woman, a hundred times a night, all day and on weekdays too! Paula can help if she wants."

This was not what any of them had expected to hear, and they all made disgusted faces, some unsure of what to say to this. Finally the boy in front of Melora stepped down and spat a big glob of snot at her feet. "You're fucking sick, you know that?"

"That's me!" Melora said gaily, "charmed, I'm sure." Knowing it was best not to stay any longer, Melora mounted her scooter and pivoted around, shooting them a dark look before making her way over to Paula, who was walking away fast.

"Well, that was stupid." Melora muttered, "nothing good will come out of that, that's for sure..."

"You didn't have to do that." Paula said angrily, trying to outwalk the girl on the scooter beside her, "I don't need any goddamned lesbians helping me."

"I'm not, actually. My mistake, I thought those boys were at least being honest about that part."

"You're not a lesbian?" Paula stopped, "then why did you–"

Melora began to laugh. "Oh, Paula, I didn't know you suburban folk believe anything they're told! Would you believe me if I told you I was a witch, too?"

"I might." Paula said begrudgingly, "coming here looking like something from a carnival, and not telling anybody where you come from, and then going up _there_ to live. Sounds like a likely candidate for anything to be believed, in my opinion."

"Well, I'm not. I'm just a girl who makes her own luck, and I don't mind sleeping in a beautiful mansion if no one else be living there at the same time. And I don't like seeing girls being picked on by people for no reason, no matter who they like to kiss behind closed doors." Melora parked her scooter once more by the Salvation Army, and called out to Paula, "Hey, if anybody picks on you again, stand up for yourself next time! No body's got the right to make your life miserable when you didn't do nothin to nobody."

Paula looked unsure as to what to do. Finally she simply nodded, and went her own way.

Melora went about her business, but she couldn't help but feel troubled. She was getting involved in these people's lives, first with Brian and now with Paula, when in truth she didn't want to be a part of their circle at all. Melora tried to shake this feeling from herself, especially when she saw that there was not one, but three down comforters on sale, and a cheap electric fan to keep Melora cool during the hot summer months. Piling these into her cart, she also picked out several large sitting pillows. These were of all different materials, some in dupione silk, others in velvet, and a few brocade ones as well. None of them matched, many had tears and moth-holes, but Melora didn't care. She couldn't really imagine who might have donated them, they certainly didn't fit the ultra-modern ultra-kitchy sensibilities of suburbia.

Melora wheeled her cart into line, shifting from foot to foot as the woman in front of her heaped her loot onto the counter.

"You're the girl who lives with the Ashtons, right?"

Melora turned her head to look behind her. The boy who stood behind her was skinny, dark haired, and wore clothes that fit badly. He seemed a bit younger than herself, perhaps a freshman or a sophomore in highschool.

"Yeah, what do you know about it?" Melora was getting tired of everyone recognizing her.

"My parents live next door. I'd seen you playing with Margo a while back, you know, dressed like Indians. Oh, and you go past our house on your way to work. Name's Eric."

Melora felt a mite relieved; after all, neighbors noticing each other wasn't too strange. "I guess then that you've heard about how I'm moving?"

The boy nodded. "People have been talking about it; it's hard to hide when people see you wheeling a dolly full of stuff to the foot of the hill."

"So what's so gossip-worthy about a girl living there?" Melora asked.

Eric shrugged. "Nobody's allowed to go near that place. Most people don't even talk about it. Then you show up, hardly saying a word to anybody but the Ashtons, and you start moving in like it was always yours to begin with! It makes people nervous, it makes the old people edgy and the young people are starting to wonder why we even have the rules at all." Eric's tone wasn't accusatory; he spoke as if he were counted among those young people.

"But does anyone know why they aren't allowed to go up there?" Melora knew she was treading dangerous waters; should anyone actually remember that a boy was killed up there, they would no doubt also remember the wondrous machine-man who killed him. Her hope was that no one would remember, that it would be one of those unquestioned taboos of society.

"My parents say that the house is too old, it would be dangerous to go exploring. A friend of mine got caught one night sneaking out to go climb the driveway, years ago, and his dad must have put him in some new sort of circle of hell as punishment, because he never ever so much looked at the place afterwards." Eric seemed disturbed. Melora was suddenly aware that several people in line were staring at them. "Anyways, we all sort of pretended that house wasn't there, most of the time."

As Melora moved forward to put her blankets and pillows on the counter, Eric leaned forwards just a tad. "But now that you're living there, and you seem to come out all right, we're all wondering just what it's like up there. How bad can it be? Is it really so dangerous?"

It was then that Melora turned to look him straight in the eye. _Time to turn on crazy homeless person mode..._ "Your parents were right to tell you to stay away. It _is_ dangerous. If I go in that house and no one ever sees me again, it won't be anybody's loss." Melora didn't actually want to scare the kid, but at the same time she didn't want anyone thinking they had any right to bother her and Edward now. "Listen to your parents. I live alone; whatever you do, whatever you hear, keep away, keep away..." Melora drifted out of the store, blankets in tow, fluttering past dreamily. She knew everyone at the counter had heard her. She hoped it was for the best; Eric seemed creeped out enough.

Melora made her way silently to Jo Anne's Fabrics, keeping her head down and not looking at anyone. She didn't want to talk to anyone besides Edward today.

Inside, Melora did an initial sweep of the store. Mostly it was older women, mothers, and one or two very small children in tow. The door behind her clacked shut, and many of them turned around to look at her. Their gazes lingered a bit longer than they should have, but Melora moved right into the aisles, avoiding eye contact. The store was very quiet, with only a cough or a sneeze to puncture the silence.

Melora first checked the pattern section; it was still August, the Halloween patterns weren't in season yet, so she dug to the very back of the drawer till she found something suitable for fifty cents. The two dress patterns and the hat patterns were a bit more expensive, being fashionable year-round, but they seemed worth the cost. Melora then measured out four yards of thick blood red flannel for her circle cloak, and five yards of some choice printed cotton that was on sale. Melora raided the bargain scrap bin for quilting squares, loading up her cart with the ones she found pleasant. Lastly she found a bolt of black leather, used normally for upholstery, and measured out four yards. This all she took to the cutting table to be measured and sliced. Melora hoped that no one would ask her any questions. They didn't. She bought the fabric, and some buttons besides, and left. As soon as the door closed behind her, the store burst into conversation.

Melora set her things down on the floor of the living room, sighing as she collapsed on the couch. Edward had been sitting on one end of it, and now he looked to her. He needn't ask anymore, Edward knew Melora would tell him how her day went.

Melora did not speak for a moment; she was tired from the awkwardness of her visit, and the hard task of rolling uphill with so many groceries. When she felt cooled down enough, she simply shook her head. "I don't know how you stood it, down there. How does anyone stand it down there? They are so bored with their own lives that they need to know everything about everyone else's. And they can get so cruel when you step out of line, when you push the boundaries too far..." Melora thought back to Paula.

Edward simply sat, listening. His expression was blank, save his eyes, which were no longer obscured by his hair. Edward's eyes were like jet orbs, reflecting nothing, absorbing everything. They conveyed the deepest, most subtle emotions Melora had ever seen. One half of his hair was delicately swept back behind his ear; Melora wondered how it could have stayed there so immaculately since she put it there, for obviously Edward himself ran the risk of cutting his ear off should he attempt such a move.

"I am ill at ease, Edward..." Melora whispered, unable to forget her sense of dread, "I do not like it down there. Not one bit."

They sat there quietly, Melora gently allowing herself to relax as she mentally sorted through her agenda for the day. The more she looked at the room around her, the studio, the paints, the tall windows, the gray walls, the velvet couch, the hearth, and then finally Edward himself, the sentient automaton who seemed her truest friend in the world, the more Melora felt the tension from the shopping trip melt away. She was safe here. Nothing so ugly from suburbia would ever make it past the gates, nothing would enter to trample Edward's beautiful flowers. This was their sanctuary.

"Well, there's only so much I can complain about the state of things..." Melora said to Edward, "I bought some really useful things today; and I finally got BGE to wire power to us. After this point, I can move in at any time."

Edward nodded. "When?"

Melora sighed. "There's nothing to stop me moving in tomorrow. I'll collect my things from the Ashtons', say my farewells, and go to work from here the next day. Providing you're still sure that you want me around." Melora looked to Edward, her tone very serious.

Edward could only nod again. Melora had cut a big, Melora-shaped space in his life and his heart, she was part of his routine now. She'd proven herself to be different from the people living in suburbia, Edward knew that no harm would come to him from her.

Melora smiled. She hoisted herself up off the couch, and began emptying her bags on the floor. As far as Edward could tell, she'd bought mostly textile goods, save for the large grated fan, which she placed in a corner near a wall socket. Melosa plugged it in, and turned the dial up to see if the power had come yet. Indeed, the fan immediately began to rotate, building up to make a dull soft roar. Cool air washed over Edward, blowing his hair gently. It felt nice.

Next Melora lifted the large down comforters, one after the other, and spread them over the carpets next to the hearth, piling them on top of each other. They covered a good sized area of the living room floor; two people could lay comfortably on them with their arms and legs spread and never touch each other. She then took the large mismatched pillows and arranged them in strategic areas over the duvets, and the makeshift bed was complete. Melosa placed the bag of fabric from Jo Anne's near the stairs, to be taken up on her next trip.

"I need to spend the next two days planning the vegetable garden. The rain from yesterday probably made the ground nice and soft; so today would be the ideal day to prepare the soil for planting. Still, I'll need to make some diagrams and read the books I bought if I'm going to be serious about this. The sooner we stop buying our vegetables, the more money we'll save," said Melosa as she went into the kitchen to grab her seed packets and her big book of gardening.

Reaching into her suitcase, Melora pulled out her notebook and flipped to a new page, and dug around for a pen. Laying all these things out on the duvets, Melora stretched out on her stomach to read and take notes. Edward got up, but wasn't sure if he should join her, so walked past her to look again at the paintings she'd set up. After a while, he sat down, content to contemplate a single image for as long as Melora would read. So while Edward walked through alien landscapes, Melora marked down when and how each of her seeds should be planted, how the soil should be tilled, and how often each plant should be watered. It was late afternoon when Melora finished taking notes; she'd filled several pages with her curlicue script.

Melora looked up, watching Edward sit before one of her paintings, his mind somewhere else entirely. What paintings would he have painted, were he created whole? What seeds would he have planted in the barren earth?

"I'm going to make some lunch, Edward." Melora said, lifting off the duvet and sashaying into the kitchen. Her words startled Edward out of his reverie. Soon he could smell soup cooking on the stove.

"Soup's is sort of all we got, besides maybe pasta..." Melora said as she set the table for two. They ate together in companionable silence, and when they were done Melora cleared the table and washed each dish in the sink.

Once she was done with this, Melora went out the back door and headed towards the shed. "I will need to make myself a hat, one of these days," Melora said as Edward followed her. Within the shed, Melora discovered a wealth of gardening tools. _Vincent must have gardened in his free time, and Edward I guess just took over afterwards._ Selecting a large shovel, Melora went back to the house and squared off a suitable looking area for her garden, pressing the shovel into the dirt to mark the area. For the next three and a half hours, Melora sweated in the sun as she turned the soil, which was black and wet with rain. Edward could do nothing, so he watched, fascinated once more by her dexterity. Melora ran the earth through chicken wire seives to get the stones out of it, and pulled up the grass and weeds from it. It was hard work, and Melora's arms were dark with dirt up to her elbows. Any earthworms she found she was careful to keep in the earth, touching them little and handling them delicately when she did.

The only thing suitable to plant in late August was the squash, which had a place reserved for it. Melora poked holes into the earth to make a row, and tenderly she placed each seed into the ground. "Sleep peacefully, and when the day comes, may each of you waken." Melora said over her buried seeds. She looked up to see Edward gazing at her silently, and felt slightly embarrassed to be caught talking to plants. Then she grinned at him.

"One time I planted petunias in a pot and took them into my room, where I read an entire novel to them," Melora said, "since I'd heard talking to your plants makes them grow better."

Edward smiled at this, and asked, "Did they?"

Melora laughed. "They practically took over my entire room!"

They ate dinner together not long afterwards, Melora turning a fork in Edward's pasta and holding it up for him to close his mouth over with a smile. "Like it?" She asked.

"Mmm-hmm." Edward intoned, chewing slowly while Melora twirled her own pasta. Melora had to laugh. Edward looked so cultivated now, with a napkin tied around his neck, and his hair neatly combed down. It was only for a lack of eyebrows and light eyes that he looked any different from the man in the photograph now.

Cleanup was of course always difficult, having no dishwasher. Melora would have to take half an hour after the meal to scrub at every plate, cup, utensil and pot that she used. Knowing this, and knowing that she would want to take a bath afterwards, Melora rekindled the stove and set two large pots of water on to boil. Edward would stay, not feeling very useful at all, but Melora helped him ignore this by telling him stories–what were really dramatic re-enactments of the movies she'd seen.

"And then!" Melora said, rinsing plate after plate, "he says to the audience, 'Don't worry, those manacles are solid aluminum! The giant ape will never be able to break them!' And the whole time I'm going, 'Oh dear, that's not very strong...' and what happens but King Kong sees the girl and he's like, 'GRAAAAAAAH!' and snaps the manacles like tissue paper, and then he's all like, 'OOOAAAAH!" and climbs this building and eats a few people and tears the panties off this one chick..."

Edward listened, slightly frightened, totally enraptured. It'd been a while since Melora had seen King Kong, but she had no problem making up the parts she didn't remember. It was funnier that way.

When she was done with the dishes, Melora took the pots of hot water up the stairs, one at a time, and emptied them into the tub. There wasn't nearly enough water to bathe properly in, so Melora had to go back downstairs and heat up more. In the mean time, the water sitting in the tub cooled, to Melora's dismay, for it took a while for the large pots to heat up. Melora decided to let the water boil a bit before taking it off the stove, and in this way the overly hot water compensated for the lukewarm water. By this time, there was enough water for Melora to wash herself comfortably in, and she quickly gathered soap and shampoo to herself while undressing. Edward had followed her up to the bathroom, and Melora briefly considered whether or not he should be in the bathroom with her. She reasoned that his intentions were totally innocent, and it would just confuse him if she were to shun him now.

Edward sat himself against a nearby wall, and Melora did not speak. It felt wonderful to be able to relax as long as she wanted, without having to hurry for anyone else. Melora dipped her head back into the water and lathered it with shampoo, and scrubbed her skin thoroughly with soap. After that, Melora unplugged the drain and leaned back against the porcelain, closing her eyes and stretching out her legs in the long tub.

She would turn this place into a paradise, she thought, it would be heaven on earth for the both of them. No more would either of them feel pain or scorn, not while in the warm embrace of Edward's garden, and all that lay within. Edward would receive everything she could give him, whatever he asked for.

The silence between them did not bother the either of them, and after a while Melora emerged from the tub, dripping water all over the floor. In the dry heat of summer, Melora enjoyed the feel of her bare skin drying. _If it weren't for the changing seasons, and the need to venture into the village, I'd probably never wear clothes, _Melora thought to herself and smiled.

Leading Edward to the library, Melora bade him to choose a book for her to read, and he pointed to one, a book of poetry. Retiring to her bedroom, Melora crawled between the sheets and opened the large tome.

"_There was an old man from the cape,_

_who made himself garments of crepe..."_

Edward did not say a word while Melora read. He sat with his knees bent to his chest, his groomed hair falling forward a bit to curve over his brow. Edward seemed to stare into nothing, but smiled once to Melora when she extinguished the wall lights. Melora had no dreams that night, and if Edward did, he did not give any indication.


	9. Chapter 9

A/n: thank you to all my reviewers; I couldn't have done it without your encouragement! 

Art school has started, and while it's a very exciting time of my life, it's also very busy. I'm not exactly sure how the update schedule is going to come from here on out, but you can bet that your support and feedback help speed things up a bit. Sadly, all I have for you is four pages worth. Please don't hate me! TT Things start to pick up pace now, so don't be surprised about that.

_Ever felt away with me_

_Just once that all I need_

_Entwined in finding you one day_

_Ever felt away without me_

_My love, it lies so deep_

_Ever dream of me_

_Would you do it with me_

_Heal the scars and change the stars_

_Would you do it for me_

_Turn loose the heaven within_

_I'd take you away_

_Castaway on a lonely day_

_Bosom for a teary cheek_

_My song can but borrow your grace_

Nightwish, "Ever Dream"

The month of August went by, each golden day wrapping Edward and his companion in a safe cocoon. Melora went the next day to the Ashtons, packing the rest of her things and bidding them goodbye. If any of them felt apprehensive, they did not show it.

Work continued both in the village and in the manor; every weekend Melora and Edward would go into the forest to chop logs for the winter and for the stove. At the video store, Melora ignored the unsolicited comments that passing pigeons gave, and focused on her job. Some days Michael and Brian would come by at lunch time, and they would eat out together. Brian asked Melora many questions, but most she dodged, always bringing the conversation back to Brian himself. Melora was always very careful not to give too much of herself away—if she noticed Brian's fawning attention over her, she did not say anything about it.

Michael noticed, of course. The way Brian would hold open doors for her, the way he chose his words so carefully when speaking to her; Melora was a beautiful puzzle box to Brian, there to be admired and contemplated and handled delicately. Brian had not had much trouble with girls before; it was his confidence in his desirability that made him forget how platonic Melora behaved towards him. Michael did not want to shatter Brian's hopes, partly because he didn't understand why Melora wasn't particularly thrilled to be the object of Brian's fascination. Brian was everything a girl Melora's age could want–charm, good looks, athleticism and popularity. Neither Michael nor Brian could see that when Melora sat with them, she was barely able to focus; so distracted was she by visions of creeping rose vines, shattered bits of colored glass, and the relentless work of time to sweep away their decadent lives into dust. How could she stop to indulge Brian in his puppy love when at home there was something so much more wondrous?

Edward threw razor bladed shadows over the walls, he was always there, filling the house with his quiet presence. Though he seldom spoke, he was never far from Melora. He would sit at the edge of her studio while she painted, sipping tea through a straw and cutting various pattern pieces out for her to later sew. When trips to the supermarket or the fabric store had Melora wondering if she would ever feel accepted for who she was, a heartfelt smile from Edward could make her heart soar. In turn, Edward would sometimes drift back to his memories of suburbia, and his heart would sink at the thought of Melora leaving him. But then Melora would come home to him, setting the table for supper, and each time she did Edward felt like nothing could separate the both of them. In the evening, after Melora had bathed, she would brush Edward's hair and read to him, always answering kindly his rare question. It wasn't long before Melora had sewn for Edward a pair of large mitts. He wore these at night, shyly bending his arms around Melora's form as they lay together on the feather duvets downstairs, despairing that he could not feel her through the leather of his suit. Each night after Melora had finished reading and blew out the candles, she would pull the thin blanket closer around them and curl her fingers around his black hair, falling asleep to the roar of the fan and the faint ticking that could be heard inside Edward's chest. He was her constant silent companion, and together they made the manor into a sanctuary. Day by day, after work or on the weekends, Melora would piece together fabric scraps to make curtains, eventually covering the walls with their gauzy draped forms, tying them back to let in the light. It seemed as if Melora sewed each day to the next, creating a train of sun-soaked afternoons, building a swing in the front yard, potting flowers to train them to grow indoors, baking cookies, showing Edward how to make paper snowflakes and sun-catchers out of colored paper, of candle-lit evenings spent in steaming baths, reading to each other as the stars came out over head, and holding midnight picnics in the garden when Melora couldn't sleep. While the house was still old and precariously held together, now it was bedecked in the gossamer fantasy of its inhabitants. In that time, it seemed like their happiness could not be touched by anything.

August gave way to September; school began for the young people in the village. It was in that first weekend of school that the dream Melora and Edward had built for themselves began to crumble.

The knocking had come around one in the afternoon. Melora was standing on a ladder upstairs, nails held in her lips as she situated a bit of tapestry over the window of the sewing room. Edward was downstairs, cutting out colored tissue paper for another sun-catcher. The both of them stopped at the sudden noise; neither of them believed at first that someone was at their door. Carefully, Melora stepped down off the ladder and tiptoed to the balcony overlooking the studio.

"Maybe they'll go away." Melora whispered, and they waited in silence. The knocking came again, more urgently this time. Melora scampered down the stairs as Edward rose, the colored paper lying forgotten at his feet, his eyes full of fear.

"Hide, quick!" Melora whispered to him, drawing back the tarp of the studio to reveal the door to the untouched bedroom. She opened it, and rushed Edward inside, settling the white sheet over the door again to remain hidden. Composing herself, Melora went to the door to open it. What she found made her gasp, and a brief look of terror passed across her face before she could catch herself.

Standing there were Mr. and Mrs. Ashton, along with a dozen of their neighbors. The Ashtons looked faintly embarassed, along with other couples who looked a bit unsure of themselves. When no one said anything, one man came forward.

"You've been hiding in there like an old hermit crab," said his wife, laughing nervously.

Melora searched her mind frantically for how to respond. "Uh, well, I've been sort of busy and I uh..."

"We understand. It must be a lot of work moving in here all by yourself, but it's been a month already, we thought you deserved a proper welcome!" the husband said. At this, the other couples seemed to brighten, regaining some of their resolve.

"Oh, well, that's very, uh, kind of you–" _Just say whatever you have to, as long as they'll leave!_

"So exactly what time is the barbecue?" a woman asked.

Melora's eyes widened. "B..barbecue?" Suddenly she glared at the Ashtons, who were trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Surely you intend to show hospitality to your neighbors by inviting them to a barbeque. We're all dying to see what you've done to the place, and we figure you'd appreciate getting to know us all in a friendly atmosphere," the man said. Melora began to protest, when others volunteered to bring different supplies.

"Next Saturday, you think?" a wife asked, and her friends concurred. Melora's jaw was agape, but before she could raise her voice over their chatter they were dispersing down the driveway.

"Wait a second, you can't just–" Melora shouted, running to the gate. Already they were gone. "A barbecue. I am so screwed." Melora muttered. She went back inside, walking quickly across the living room to the studio. Melora pulled the sheet back and opened the door slowly.

"Edward?" Melora called out. She shivered; that room gave her the creeps. She could hear him snipping, and again she called to him, "Edward? It's safe, they're gone. They're all gone."

Something black and spindly moved at the corner of her eye, but before she could be afraid Melora realized that it was the tips of Edward's blades emerging from under the bed. "Oh lord. Of all the places." Melora groaned as Edward crawled out to stand on his feet. He seemed taller in the low-ceilinged room, his face powdery white in the shadows. From head to foot, he was covered in dust and cobwebs. Melora was about to crack a joke about it when she saw the look of absolute terror in Edward's eyes.

"Did they come for me?" Edward asked, visibly trembling. His arms were crossed over himself, the shiny vinyl glinting under a fine layer of dust. Melora felt her heart breaking, and she reached out to touch him. Edward stepped back, suddenly uncrossing his arms. _Snikt!_

"Ow!" Melora cried, snatching her hand away as blood welled at the tips of her fingers. The wounds weren't deep, but they stung fiercely. Tears ran down her cheeks at the pain, Melora could not stop them from coming. "Ow..." she said again, shakily.

Edward's face fell, gazing first at his bloody razors, and then at Melora's tear streaked visage. "I...I'm sorry, Melora."

Melora sniffled. "It's ok, Edward. I know you were just scared; you didn't mean to. Let me run some ice water over this cut before we do anything else."

Cautiously, Edward followed her to the kitchen. Melora could not help crying a little; her fingertips were extremely sensitive. Knowing that Edward still didn't have a definite answer to his question, Melora tried to break the bad news as gently as she could, "no, they didn't come for you, Edward. They...they want to have a barbecue here. They didn't really ask me whether I wanted to have one or not. It all happened so fast. I tried to tell them no, but they'd made up their mind before they even knocked on the door."

As soon as Edward's fear subsided, it came back. Melora saw the scared look on his face, and grimaced herself. "I know. But..." Melora finished wrapping her fingertips in band-aids, "I won't let them ever hurt you. They won't even come in this house. It'll only be for a few hours, and then we'll be rid of them. They won't see you. You'll be safe and sound."

Inwardly, Edward was not convinced, but when Melora pressed him into a chair and ran a cool washcloth over his face, he could not allow himself to think of anything else but the feel of her hands on his skin. Gently she wiped away the dust, marveling at the marble whiteness of his brow and the way that little crystal clear droplets of water balanced on the thick black lashes of his eyelids.

Melora beckoned Edward to follow her upstairs. In the bathroom, Melora bent him over the sink, running cool water through his hair, massaging the cobwebs away with her fingers. _I hurt her, and yet she remains, she touches me, she takes care of me. She loves me. _If Edward understood the concept of a god, he would have prayed to be struck dead right then, before the beautiful dream Melora had built for him crumbled to dust, like he knew it would have to.

Together they lay on Melora's bed, Edward reclining in Melora's arms, his back to her. He was careful to keep his arms straight at his sides, angling them away from Melora's thighs, which he nestled the lower half of his body between. His head rested at her collar bone, while Melora gently combed her fingers through his hair, stroking the sides of his face. He looked so peaceful to Melora, who viewed him from above, his fragrant black locks drying in whisps against her chest.

"I'm sorry I hurt you." Edward whispered, his voice delicate in his throat. He didn't want her to stop touching him. He didn't want any distractions from the feel of her palms and nails and fingers stroking him, so he closed his eyes, hoping he could stay like that forever. Trapped in a body that was shut off from physical touch, that could only feel in one place, Edward did not respond like a normal man to Melora's caresses. He did not arch his back or curl his toes, he did not move at all, actually. Edward lay very still, perhaps even stiffly, trying his best not to snip his scissors in apprehension. Edward could not help but jerk his limbs slightly when he felt something soft touch his lips.

Melora lifted for a moment, whispering against her companion's mouth, "It's ok. I forgive you," before lowering to kiss him again, turning Edward's jaw upwards to get better access. Twining her fingers deeper into his hair, Melora saw colors suddenly explode dully behind her eyelids. She felt warm air pass across her cheek as Edward sighed, not sure how to respond to Melora's actions but reveling in the sensation all the same.

_Please don't stop..._Edward prayed silently. He couldn't help but remember his first kiss, given almost as an afterthought. It hadn't meant anything to him then. It was an unfamiliar gesture, done in haste before everything really did fall apart. Kim had kissed him, and then she had left. Forever. The only thing that had come afterwards was snow, in abundance, a form of self expression that did nothing to ease his loneliness, beauty incarnate reaching up only to be trapped in merciless ice.

But this was not some rushed, desperate expression of love, regret and despair. This was his Melora. She could never be Kim, but somehow she was so much more than Kim ever was. She was his companion, she accepted him and loved him for who he was. She never used him, or treated him like a lapdog. She loved unconditionally, and gave of herself all she could. She was the only one who had.

When Melora pulled back, Edward kept his eyes closed. His lips were flushed, like bruised fruit, they were full and tinged violet. Melora felt him relax completely, sagging against her. Together they stayed that way, eventually slipping into dream, and for that time nothing bad could touch them.


	10. Chapter 10

1A/N: The first day of my month-long winter break, and I dedicate it to you, all of you who read this, who have stuck with me through it all, encouraging me with your reviews, letting me know that by writing this, I bring some light to another person's life. This past semester, the first semester of art school, has been tough, and it's about to get much harder in the spring.

To be honest, I do not have a lot of faith in my writing. I'm amazed that my stories are as popular as they are. I think one of my biggest wishes while writing this story was to have some sort of support group, like...Alcoholics Anon., but for Edward Scissorhands. I suppose what I really hoped for was a community filled with art and fan-fiction dedicated to this incredible movie, but for all the love of it, I find very little creative effort towards it. I sort of feel like I'm out here on my own, which is discouraging. It makes me question if I should be writing this story at all.

So, while you read this, please take the time to consider perhaps making your own contribution to this very small fandom; think about what could be accomplished if I had some help keeping this fandom alive. Write, draw, paint, let yourself go with it; it doesn't matter if it's awful or not. Hell, if all you can think of doing is writing fanfiction about Edward and Melora together, by all means. It's better than nothing; and I encourage you to send me the fruits of your labor should you decide to take this upon yourself. I certainly know what a help it can be to receive encouragement from fellow fans.

Anyways. I hope you enjoy chapter 10 of "How We Quit the Forest".

Melora's eyes narrowed as she pulled back the curtains that Saturday morning. The entire week had been intolerable; as word spread about the barbecue, Melora realized just how many people would be showing up. Suddenly everyone wanted to see what had become of the creepy, mysterious mansion on the hill, and the creepy, mysterious, slightly off stranger living within. Melora anxiously tapped her nails against the window-pane. Edward watched her from deep within the shadows of the house, feeling as if the emptiness of the house threatened to tear through his life, shake it to pieces. Melora would go out those doors, and she would never come back. Or worse, she would come back, with an army a hundred strong, come to rip him apart and destroy the peace in his heart.

Melora snapped the curtain back in place and stalked around the living room. Edward had never seen her so tense before. Melora had been rather strained at work, regretting the barbecue to come more and more each day. Michael did not stop by anymore, perhaps sensing that Melora would blame him for his parent's attempts to bring her into the community. Home did not seem like a safe haven anymore, when soon strangers would be trampling the grass that grew there.

"I can't stand this!" Melora gnashed her teeth, "those voyeuristic bastards, pretending like they want to get to know me, I know they just want to oogle at me and get a glimpse of the horrid, ugly ruined castle they think I live in!"

"Will they come in?" Edward whispered.

Melora stopped her pacing. "No. No, they won't. There's no way I'll let them. This is our home. But...they could see you through a window. No doubt they're going to try to get a look at the inside." Melora scowled. The time was fast approaching. "In the bathroom. There are no windows there."

And so Edward climbed the stairs, somehow feeling abandoned, even though he told himself that it was for his own protection. He shut himself in, his blades scraping against the wood of the door, sealing up the room in darkness. He wandered around the bathroom, trying his best to avoid the tub, and sat down in a far corner. Edward drew his legs up close to his chest, and awkwardly wrapped his arms around his knees. There he closed his eyes and thought of Melora's smile, telling himself that it would be the first thing he would see when that door opened again.

Downstairs, Melora tossed the large salad she'd prepared for the afternoon's activities. All the while, Melora told herself this was a one-off, and after this she would never have to entertain again. She felt horribly guilty for shutting Edward up in the bathroom, but she convinced herself that it was for his own protection.

The hour waxed and waned, and soon the sun shone in the middle of the sky. One by one, they made their way up the long driveway, abandoning their cars at the foot of the hill to travel on foot. One by one they spilled through the gate, filling the lawn with their nervous laughter and the smell of food. A grill was set up, and soon burger patties were cooking. Children chased each other through the sculpture, never straying too far from their parents, who milled about drinking their strawberry daiquiris and chatting. Melora nearly tore the curtain, she was so furious. The nerve they had, setting up their grills and lawn chairs even before they saw their host. She silently bared her teeth at all of them, and then stood back. She straightened her hair, pulled up her socks, and, salad bowl in hand, went out to greet her neighbors.

Chatter stopped as soon as Melora appeared. There were a lot of people she barely recognized, along with Michael and Brian, and even Eric from the thrift-store was there.

"Well." Melora stated a little icily, "enjoy yourselves, by all means..." her eyes shot to the children running about in the garden—"but I ask that you treat the horticulture with respect, and absolutely no one is allowed inside the house."

The silence went on, and Melora began to sweat. People were looking at her expectantly. What did they want her to say? "So, uh, have fun, all of you, and...welcome to my barbecue?" Melora balked inside; she couldn't believe she'd said something so dumb sounding. However, the guests seemed satisfied, and went back to chatting amongst themselves. Melora frowned, but set the bowl of salad down on a table and went back inside.

All the lamps and candles had been extinguished to discourage the guests from peering through the windows. Melora traveled up the long staircase to the upper floor, slowly opening the door to the bathroom. It was pitch dark inside, and absolutely silent. Then Melora heard a few soft snips. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Melora spotted a few bolts and buckles, weakly glinting in the gloom . Drawing closer, she saw Edward's pale face lift, his eyes lost in the deeply cast shadows beneath his brow.

"I just came in to see how you were doing." Melora said, kneeling beside Edward. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and he turned his face to hers.

"Have they tried to come in?" he whispered.

"No. I think it should be fine." Melora said, and then bent to kiss his cheek. Edward smiled softly, and for a moment Melora could see tiny pin-pricks of light shining in the two caverns of his eyes. "I have to go now; the longer they miss me, the more they'll want to come in here and find me."

Melora closed the door behind her and made her way down the stairs, out into the garden. She stood in a place that seemed out of the way, where she could watch the goings on of her neighbors. It wasn't long, though, before one of the women of the village struck up a conversation with her.

She was tanned, in her late thirties, a creature of perfume and nails and lipstick and of high heels. Her hair was cut short, the color some sort of brownish-blond variety. Her dress ended at her knees, and was covered in lime-green and hot-pink watermelons. In her hand she held a little plastic cup of ice tea, and on her ears dangled two teardrop pearls.

"Hi, my name's Jenna Parker. What made you decide to move in here? It's quite the fixer-upper, isn't it?"

"I'm a very private person. It's hard to paint when there are so many distractions to deal with in town," Melora answered, "and I think I've managed quite well with the repairs. I don't need anything fancy. I actually like the way it looks."

"What, on the outside?" the woman sipped her ice tea, "I guess if that's your thing. So you paint? Like, on canvases? Ever think of taking them into town to sell?"

"I suppose I could. I don't know if anyone would want to buy them, though. I'm afraid people would think them too unusual."

"Unusual?" The woman replied, looking confused, but before she could continue, another woman came up to Melora. "Lucille Balle. No relation. Nice place you got here. Quite the view." Lucille had brown hair, that was cut too thinly for her features, which were dark and flushed with rosaceae. Her nails were not painted, and her clothes were very simple and casual. With the two women facing her, Melora pressed her back a little more firmly against the facade of the mansion. Melora felt short and young next to them, perhaps secretly criticized for owning such a large house in her youth.

In the next hour, many women came up to Melora. None of the men offered to talk to her. The women asked Melora a lot of questions, mostly having to do with her future there at the mansion, but also questions about where she came from. Melora dodged these questions as best as she could, often blatantly ignoring them as they came up. All the women frightened her, to some extent. They seemed so garish, so replaceable, though Melora knew this was a very petty judgement. The conversation was so empty. Melora longed to scrub the paint off their faces and hands, mess up their hair, dirty up their dresses, and expose the most vulnerable parts of them. Not out of malice, but out of an allergy to their ridiculous pretensions as they were. They seemed so ugly to Melora, ugly in their loud colors and expensive perfume and caked on makeup, and the worst part about it was that she could tell they all thought they looked stunning. These were the sort of women who would try so desperately to include Melora in their leisure time, introduce her to all of their friends, and then be offended when she would rather paint alone in her studio. They were a trap, a very dangerous one. They were there to tear down Melora's barrier of privacy, they would force their way into her home with Edward and laugh at how poor they both were, or look at her paintings and feel sorry for her, or discuss what a scandal it was that she was living by herself with a man who was so handicapped.

These were the thoughts Melora had as every woman in the neighborhood came up to talk to her, and no one noticed that while her lips smiled, her eyes were guarded. She refused the food and drink they had brought, and firmly denied them entrance to her home when they insisted on seeing the reparations she'd done.

Finally, she heard a man's voice above the high chatter of the females, and Brian parted the women to draw Melora out and away from the others.

"Thanks. They were getting a little tiring to talk to." Melora said.

"No problem. I can tell that this isn't really your sort of thing." Brian replied.

"You're so right! I can't believe people actually do this sort of thing on a regular basis."

They walked away from the noise of the barbecue, Brian following Melora to the back of the house where the vegetable garden was. The day was hot, the chill autumn not having set in yet. Brian's heart was beating wildly in his chest as he watched Melora walk before him. Her dress was checkered grey, tying in the back with a bow; her hair in its habitual side buns. Her skin was luminescent in the sunshine, and the bees seemed to follow her away from the flowered landscape of the front yard. Melora did not notice the insects as they spun lazily around her. Having never seen Melora in her natural settings before, Brian could only wonder at how she transformed her surroundings to become enchanted. The air around her was sweet and fresh, hot as it was, the grass did not seem to bend beneath her feet as she walked.

"Is this your garden?" Brian asked.

"Yeah, I'm hoping I'll be able to live mostly off this in a while; my finances are pretty tight." Melora replied.

They spoke for a while, idly, Melora's eyes constantly wandering back to the front yard. If Brian seemed a little tense, Melora didn't pay too much attention to it. Her mind was mostly on Edward, hoping the barbecue would end soon so that she could join him.

"Melora..." Brain started, and then stopped. She glanced back at him, lifting her eyebrows.

"Yes, Brian?"

"I need to ask you something."

"...I can see that." Melora said, hoping her tone was cheerful and not critical.

"Melora...ever since I met you, you've been in my mind." Brian shifted from foot to foot. "God, that sounds terrible."

"Take your time."

"...Out of all the girls in this town, you're the only one who does anything for me–"

"I—do something for _you..._" Melora said incredulously; "surely not."

"Please, let me finish...Melora, you're so smart and interesting, and you're really pretty in a kind of weird way, and..." Brian sighed, "this is really hard to say."

"Pray continue." Melora leaned against the facade of the house, kicking lightly at the grass with the heel of her boot.

"Melora, to me you are, and have always been, and will always be–the pink, the pearl, the perf–"

"...ection of my sex. You've been reading Virginia Woolf, I see."

Brian looked hurt. "You don't have to shoot me down like that. You can just say no, you know. I know I'm not your type."

_If only you knew what my type was..._ "I'm sorry, Brian. It must have taken a lot of courage to say all that just now; I didn't mean to crush your hopes. But you still haven't asked me your question yet."

Brian was at a loss. In theory, Brian knew that he wasn't the sort of guy that girls like Melora went after, even if he really didn't know what the profile for a girl like Melora was. In practice, though, Brian was unused to handling rejection, and had assumed that with a little integrity Melora would see that dating him was the best thing for her.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No, not to me."

"Then...what I'm asking is...uh...is..._will you go to the Sadie-Hawkin's dance with me?_"

Melora stared at him, hard. "The Sadie-Hawkins's dance. I thought that was an event where the girls asked the boys out. You haven't had any invitations?"

"Of course I've had invitations! But the only person I want to go with is you, and I didn't think you'd know about it unless I asked first."

"Now, hold on a minute..." Melora said, "out of all the girls, and I'm sure there were plenty, out of all the girls who asked you out, not one of them appealed to you?"

"Nope, compared to you, they're all...well, I don't know...I feel like I could get to know them completely in fifteen minutes. They all like the same stuff. And it's not that they're not good looking, it's just, I get so tired, sometimes, of looking at the same face on every girl."

"It's Stepford down there, and you're looking for something that wasn't pieced together by Hugh Hefner and Kate Moss, correct?"

"Uhm...I think so. Yeah."

Melora sighed, looking around herself at the safe haven that she had built, and felt saddened that it was now being invaded by such triteness. "Brian, everyone is different. I don't know why your people try so hard to appear the same; but I bet that if you just looked hard enough, and spent some time at it, you would find that every girl down there is a treasure waiting to be discovered, a sleeping beauty waiting to be awakened. They just don't know it yet."

Brian looked crestfallen. "So you're saying you won't go to the dance with me?"

"No, Brian, I won't go to the dance with you," Melora said in frustration, "instead, why don't you take the time to get to know all the girls who would give anything to dance with you? You could be their hero; you could rescue them from a life of boredom and Pleasantville-pleasantness."

"What?"

Melora gritted her teeth, forcing herself to be patient. "I'm not some shooting star you have to catch. God, I don't even know how old I am, I could be old enough to be your mother with a stretch of the imagination! There are so many girls down there, sleeping, waiting, drowning in a sea of sameness and lowered expectations. I'm telling you to go down there and give them a chance to shine, unearth their hidden glory—" Melora stopped, and Brian followed her gaze as a look of horror spread over her face.

"NO!" Melora shouted, and ran towards the front of the house, Brian close behind. Melora's legs pumped furiously, her hair bouncing on the sides of her head. Though the day was hot, Melora felt chilled inside. "Stop that!" she yelled, her eyes wide as she watched the children of the neighborhood stomping through the flower-beds, ripping up grass and flowers in their play. Some were trying to climb on the hortisculptures, others were digging holes in the earth to play games. And, to her horror, many of them were trying to climb through the windows of the house, trying to look inside.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Melora's cries grew frantic. No one heard her; the adults laughing over their private jokes, pretending not to notice the havoc their children were wreaking. Melora could just see them, throwing their martini-mixes on all her paintings, tearing apart her furniture, breaking the priceless china, and once they had done that, they would make their way upward, forcing all the doors open, hauling Edward up over their shoulders, touching him, unbuckling him, tearing out his hair, ripping him to pieces to carry them home as souvenirs.

Melora stomped over to a picnic table and lifted a large pot of casserole. Then, using all her strength, she heaved it at the facade of the house. The sound of shattering porcelain pierced the din of laughter, and suddenly all was silent, eyes fixated on the trembling, furious figure in the middle of the yard.

"_The party is over. _Pack your things up, and leave now."

No one protested. Melora could see that they all thought she was overreacting, though nevertheless they packed up their grills and napkins and tables and plates, and no one asked her about the casserole dish. Melora could see that secretly, they knew they were guilty. Brian tried to come up to her, but she said to him, quietly, "Go away, Brian. I can't talk to you right now."

When they had all left, making their way down the long, serpentine driveway, Melora allowed herself to relax just a little bit. She turned to the garden, feeling like her heart was dissolving. It was a mess. It wasn't anything serious; she and Edward could patch it up, she was sure. It was really the insult of it all, that a haven for so long had turned into a stomping ground for strangers. It had been Edward and Melora's playground, free from prying eyes.

_We'll fix it. It wont be this way forever._ Melora thought to herself, _Edward probably misses me. I can take care of this later. _

Melora made her way back to the giant front doors, thankful that inside was completely undisturbed. All of her paintings hung against the studio wall, dark and bright squares greeting her. She touched the velvet cushions of the couch, intact and welcoming. Melora climbed the staircase, touching the crouched, vulture-like sculpture perched on the banister.

Reaching the top of the staircase, she stood directly before the door to the bathroom. It was then that Melora knew that something was off. The single wall light was on, and the door was half-open. Her blood turned to ice at the sight of two sneakered feet peering out from under the door. Melora rallied her wits about her, preparing herself for a possible fight. She then quickly pushed open the door, fist raised.

The girl turned to look at her, her skin white as a sheet. She was trembling. Edward stood in the corner farthest from her, his arms awkwardly crossed over himself, his head bent downward.

"...Paula?" Melora asked shakily, lowering her fist.


	11. Chapter 11

Author's note: Once again, thank you to all of you who have stuck with me this far! Things are speeding up, eh? Well, you know what they say; Dante's "Inferno" was pretty cool, but his "paradisio" was as boring as you'd expect anything about perfection to be. Inspiration has struck me in many ways, so please check out the illustration I made, I worked very hard on it:

www (dot) deviantart (dot) com (slash) deviation (slash) 45068535 (slash)

or just look at the newest thing on my DA gallery, under the name "xevv". More illustrations are coming shortly, and I also take requests on this story.

Oh, and by the way: happy soltice to everybody, and merry christmas!

"Wild in the woods of love

We harm those whom we adore

And contrary to all good intentions

We suffocate them in an alarming embrace.

Listen child, try to understand,

All is not what it appears to be in the world at hand.

Here dreams are bought and sold for a price.

The truth a burden to keep for the rest of your life..."

Dead Can Dance, "Wild in the Woods"

"I'm so sorry..." Paula said for the fifth time, clutching her glass of milk to her chin. Melora shook her head and said nothing. It was just the two of them sitting at the kitchen table, the afternoon light like butter coming in through the windows, aurifying the air. When Melora had finally coaxed Paula out of the bathroom, she turned back to look for Edward. He was gone, slipping into the shadows, probably up the stairs, disappearing into the attic. The empty powder room haunted Melora's face as she poured a glass of milk for the girl.

"I didn't think you would mind; I...I really had to go to the bathroom," Paula said, "I wasn't going to be long; I didn't want to poke around."

"How did you get in?" Melora asked, her voice hard.

"There was a window open in the back; I climbed in through there."

Melora closed her eyes, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyelids, sighing with frustration. Paula watched her from across the table, her eyes wide with a mixture of fright and apprehension.

"...who is he?" Paula asked timidly.

Melora's arms thudded against the table. She stared at Paula, the empty powder room reflected in her eyes. "No one can know about him," Melora said, steel in her throat, "I'm half tempted to take you out back and kill you, and the only reason I think I wont do it is because I doubt I'll sleep any easier for it."

"Why would you kill me?" Paula clutched the glass a little tighter.

Melora sighed again. "Because I'm afraid that if I don't, you'll go back down there, and you'll tell everyone, and they'll come back up here and drag him out into the daylight, and I don't even want to think about what would happen then," Melora said, "I'm afraid that everyone down there thinks that it's their god-given right to pry into the private lives of strange people. I'm afraid I've just begun to experience this first hand. I know I might be able to take it; but I also know that Edward would never tolerate it."

"His name is Edward?"

Melora moaned, "Now you know his name too. Paula, you've got to swear to me that you'll never tell anyone about this...because if things get bad for me, I'll make sure they get a lot worse for you." Paula shrunk back in her chair. She'd never heard anyone make a threat so seriously, so matter-of-factly. "At this point, I might even consider killing someone else and making it look like you did it."

"I swear. No one would believe me anyways."

"They're not going to get a chance to disbeleive you. You're never going to tell anybody about what you saw in that bathroom. You wont even think about it. You won't even tell them that you were inside this house," Melora said, "and now you're going to go home, because your parents are wondering where you are, and the last thing I need is somebody coming up here to look for you, and you're going to tell them you got lost, or you were at a friend's house, or something equally plausible—"

"I haven't got any friends," Paula interrupted, "and no one is going to come looking for me. My parents don't want to know where I am, most of the time. They act surprised that I come home at all these days."

Melora's mind ground to a halt. She stared at Paula, disbelieving, feeling as if she was looking at Paula for the first time. "Why don't you have any friends, Paula?" Melora's voice was less frantic now, "why are your parents surprised that you come home each night?"

"Because...I'm awkward. Because boys don't want to date me, and girls are afraid to be seen with me. People notice that here. And it's an embarassment to my parents. They've stopped trying to throw parties during the holidays; no one comes anymore. Not because my parents are boring people, but because I'm their daughter, and around here, awkwardness is a catching disease."

"But I'm awkward too; I've done more crazy she-bum impressions to these people just to make them leave me alone, but it seems like I can't get rid of any of them. Why am I so appealing to those suburbanites when you're not?" Melora already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear Paula say it.

"I'm old news. You're not just awkward, you're _strange. _People don't get exposed to much of that. People like to think that because you're new and weird that there's something really interesting about you that they have to find out; they want to taste that weirdness for themselves without leaving the safety of society. You're exciting, you're half hidden in a town where there's no such thing as a secret, or at least that's what people would like to believe. I'm weird too, but people already know all my secrets. There's nothing left to discover with me; to them I just represent an ugly truth about life, and they'd rather look at the pretty mysteries in you."

"But what is this 'ugly truth' you talk about? I was raised to think that truth was a beautiful thing; what is so awful about you that causes people to avoid you at all costs?"

Paula looked back at Melora, a hurt expression in her eyes. "Why are you trying to drag this out of me? You knew the first day you met me."

"I want to hear you say it."

"No."

"If you say it, I'll introduce you to Edward." Melora regretted saying it as soon as it slipped out. She could see Paula's eyes light up. _Stupid, Melora, how very stupid._

"Okay, fine. I guess I don't have as much pride as I thought," said Paula, "the reason why I don't have any friends is because I'm a lesbian. Happy?"

Melora smiled, despite her thumping heart. Though she was not yet aware of it, something was brewing just below the surface in her, a kind of plot, a play of a very different sort. All that was left was the time to ferment and boil over into reality, as surely it must, as all great plans do. "It was once said that homosexuality is a disease of the mind. In a place like this, the people of suburbia are highly susceptible to a mental disease of a different sort. If we are to believe them when they say that your brand of insanity is catching, perhaps together we can fight one kind of insanity with another."

Paula gazed at Melora across the table. "What are you saying, Melora?"

"I'm saying that as long as you can keep this secret, you don't have to worry about not having any friends. Edward and I know what it's like to not fit in, to be alone." Melora stood up and took the empty glass from Paula, rinsing it in the sink. "Come on, I wasn't lying. Let's go see if he'll talk to you."

Melora's chest felt tight as they climbed the stairs. _First I come. Then the barbecue. Now Paula. _She wouldn't blame Edward if he was angry about this. She had said no one would come inside. Now, not only was there a stranger here, but Melora was taking her upstairs to meet him. The bandages on the tips of her fingers seemed too tight, suddenly.

Up one flight of stairs, down a narrow corridor, and then up another flight, the walls closing in progressively as they made their ascension. Finally Melora knocked on the door, calling softly to Edward. The fact that he did not say anything didn't stop Melora from going in and shutting the door behind her after telling Paula to wait.

It was especially hot in the attic, as is the nature of high places in the warm months. The floor boards creaked under Melora's feet as she walked towards the shadows, knowing she would find Edward there. She could hear the nervous snipping, could see the sillhouette of a form hunched over in the darkness. Melora knelt down beside him and touched Edward's temple, bidding him to look up at her. He did so, trembling, and she cooed softly.

Those two sad black orbs were the last thing Melora saw before a tremendous groaning, rending sounded above her, and in an instant they were both struck down.

* * *

Melora was lying on her back. Dully she could hear a siren above her, and below her she felt the vibrations of movement. She was very cold, which was a strange feeling in early September. She opened her eyes enough to form tiny slits. Dangling above her was a plastic bag filled with clear fluid, with a tube extending down to somewhere out of her range of sight. Something thin had been inserted into her nostrils, what felt like plastic tubes crisscrossing her face. There was a steady beeping sound coming from somewhere. Melora could not feel anything below her neck, but she was too sleepy to really give it much thought. People moved about her, no one seemed to notice that she was awake.

Melora closed her eyes, and when she next opened them she saw the tiles of a ceiling flowing past her. Someone dressed in white was above her. It was then that Melora felt the pain—all over her entire body, urgent, deep pain.

"Ooow..." Melora croaked, unable to say anything else. The pain soon sent her body into convulsions, which largely went unnoticed as she was strapped down and immobile. They wheeled her into a room, and someone put a rubber mask over her face and told her to breath deeply. Melora felt her ribs crack a little more, but it was only for a second—soon the gas invaded her lungs and made her giggle and then there was only a dark, floating feeling for a long, long time.

* * *

Darkness. Someone was in her room.

"Will she be all right?"

_Paula?_

"...suffered a concussion, three broken ribs, and several contusions along the back due to blunt impact of the beam. Also recovering from large inscision which penetrated through the large intestine, but did not exit..."

_Oh God, doctor, tell me it wasn't Edward, please god, please tell me he didn't do that..._

"...the wound was probably caused by a blade of some sort, so interrogation of the patient will be required in such unusual circumstances..."

Melora was screaming, her eyes wide open. The last thing she saw was a nurse coming towards her with a needle.

* * *

"How are you feeling this morning, Mel?"

"Better. That's a lie." Melora lay with her arms to her sides, her hair draped over the pillow. To her left sat Paula, a grocery bag full of cookies and ice cream at her feet. "Most of the time I just go retarded on the morphine. I know it's addictive but I'd rather be a morphine junkie right now than to have to feel anything."

Paula didn't have the heart to tell Melora how awful she looked. Her face was worse than Edward's, covered in cuts and powder-pale from the fluorescent lighting. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, sunken into her skull to form shadows. They'd had to remove so many splinters from her face and arms, Paula couldn't help but think of Melora as a sort of pin-cushion sometimes. While Melora allowed the nurses to bathe her, she refused to let them brush her hair, and so had become a ropy mess growing from her head.

"Every time I move my torso, two things happen: one, my back feels like a band of ninjas performed karate death-strikes to my spine, and two, my abdomen feels like it's on fire. Morphine can only do so much after a month of taking it."

Paula opened the box of neopolitan ice cream and prepared a bowl. "Thank you," said Melora, "still no word from Edward?"

"Not yet. He's definitely up there somewhere, though. I hear him sometimes," Paula replied, "late at night, when I go up there to sleep. He's got to be, since he's been taking care of the gardens. I try to give him a lot of privacy, I know he's been through enough already."

Melora sighed. She missed Edward so much. At least Paula was taking care of things. After the roof caved in on them, Paula had forced open the door and pulled Melora out from under the timber. Although it probably just made her injuries worse, it meant that the paramedics didn't have to enter the house. They whisked her away in an ambulance, and Paula went back upstairs to find Edward, but by the time she reached the attic, he was gone. She never saw him after that, though often she would come up to the house to replace the ice in the icebox and keep visitors away, and also to escape problems back at home. Melora had been so grateful when she found out that Paula had been hired to replace Melora for the time that she couldn't work herself; she hadn't expected to keep the job with her injuries.

When Paula would leave the hospital in the evenings, Melora would watch the windows glow then grow dark, glow then grow dark with the passing cars. Tv did not interest her. She was too tired at night to read the books that Paula would get for her from the library, so she would close her eyes, sealing the unshed tears inside her eyelids, and think about Edward. She would remember the courage it took to bend her head down and kiss him, full on the lips, chaste as it was. She thought of how scared he must have been when Paula discovered him.

Melora thought about reading to Edward on hot summer nights, the fan on full force, the light blankets softly encasing them as she slept. With the mitts that Melora had sewn, it was impossible for Edward to accidentally hurt her. She thought about opening her eyes each morning to see his porcelain face next to hers, his expression serene. It would only take a slight change in her breathing for him to know that she was awake, and at first he would open his eyes immediately. As time passed, though, Edward would keep his eyes closed for a while, basking in the feeling of safety that it gave him.

Melora would recall putting on some of her favorite music and drawing for a few hours, Edward watching her silently. Nothing ever came out of it; the final product was worthless junk, a mess of abstract forms. The only reason Melora kept going at it was because she knew that she had to, if she wanted to unlock the part of her mind that seemed totally shut off.

As Melora drifted off to sleep, the last thing she would imagine was the midnight picnics that she would surprise Edward with, when nightmares would disturb her peace. She would touch his face gently, and he would open his eyes to moonlight filtering through the draped windows, the white light falling softly on Melora's form. She would take a blanket out into the garden, along with a large pitcher of iced tea and two glasses. There they would lie on opposite ends of the blanket, their temples gently pressed together in the center, as the milky way dripped diamonds across the sky above them. There they would whisper...

"Melora?"

"Yes, Edward?"

"Will I ever die?"

"You've lived a long time."

"But will I die?"

"I don't know. I'm sure you could, if you really tried."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes. Are you thinking of trying it any time soon?"

"For a while I did."

"And now?"

"I don't think I will."


	12. Chapter 12

1A/n: What's up, darlings? Thank you, everyone for your support–this story wouldn't have made it without you. I'm so glad reviews are positive so far–to be honest, I didn't expect people to like a non-canon pairing for this fandom. So, how was your winter break? Mine was kind of crappy; I had to go through another break-up, which means that everything comes grinding to a halt while I go through the mourning process. But, after a sunny week in Key West, Florida, I'm back on my feet and ready to keep on going with HWQtF! ...right in time, of course, for school to start back up again. TT Updates might come a little slowly, but please keep checking my DA for more fanart of this story–I've got tons of work in progresses lined up that I can take with me to class sometimes to work on. As always, please review, and if you are so inclined I welcome requests for specific illustrations to this story.

"Here and now, I feel that I'm embracing freedom

Even though I may be alone, but that's ok

And looking out to a different sky will disengage me

Absence is never the answer, I know, but it serves as my shade

I do not seek and do not intend to find

A calmer ocean or a sun that will never rise

My world will never change and time will bring you to my thoughts

And I'll move on and then forget you all over again

Moving on, I can forgive you all over again"

Delerium, "A poem for Byzantium"

"Paula, I think I'm going insane." The two women sat in the sunlight of the hospital's recreation center, the windows opening on a flaming red and orange garden. Melora was parked in her wheelchair next to the heater, Paula sitting opposite of her with a crossword puzzle lying half finished in her lap.

"Hmm? Are they not taking you off the morphine slow enough?" Paula asked.

"That's not it. I think this is so much more than the morphine talking. I never told you about..." Melora suddenly looked unsure of continuing.

"What?"

"You'll think I'm crazy."

"Isn't that what you're trying to tell me in the first place?"

"Yes, but I mean, I'm afraid you'll think I'm crazy for not getting help sooner. The things I've been seeing...Paula, it's some pretty freaky stuff."

"Like what?"

"Entire rooms melting into blobs of swirling color. Watching myself turn into smoke for a few seconds. Talking pigeons that aren't really pigeons but who are really handfuls of buttons. The night sky looks like Van Gogh threw up all over it. And that's just the stuff I was seeing before the accident. It's more subtle now, but it's really disorienting."

Paula's gaze was now focused solely on Melora, her interest peaked. "What do you see?"

"Some days I wake up and look in the bathroom mirror, and there's not a scratch on me. I feel fine, physically. For a few seconds I'll be brushing my teeth, and the person staring back at me is twice my age, but it's still me. That's really scary. No, that's terrifying." Melora said, keeping her voice low, "Then sometimes I swear you were in the room talking with me, when I turn over to get some water or something, and as soon as I turn back around, you're gone. Sometimes you'll disappear and the room will be a different temperature, or the time of day will be completely off. Then I'll blink and you'll be there again, and it's like it never happened."

Paula gazed at Melora fixedly, not saying anything for a while. Melora stared back, and her lip began to tremble.

"Melora–?"

"I...I...uh..ah..." Melora blinked rapidly, but tears dripped down her face all the same. Feeling the hot droplets on her cheeks, she quickly buried her face in her hands but could not completely muffle the sound of her own sobbing. Paula got up from her chair and touched Melora's shoulder, kneeling down to be level with her. Melora turned and buried her face into Paula's neck, her soft red hair soaking up her tears.

"I...I miss him so much..." Melora hiccupped, gasping to regain control of herself. "I hate this place; I've been here for a month and it's killing me that I can't be with Edward, and I can't stop thinking about him, and how frightened he must be, and what if he's hurt and, and, and..." Paula continued to hold her until her sobs and gasps faded away, rocking gently, careful not to put any undue pressure on Melora's torso.

Finally the two women drew back from each other. Paula stood and pulled her chair closer to Melora's wheelchair and said, "I don't know what to tell you about these visions you're having. Maybe you had some sort of trauma even before the beam struck your head like that. You never talk about your life before you came to Suburbia; maybe once you go back home and are feeling a little more stable, you should try and think back to what could have triggered these episodes."

Melora wiped at the salty wet sheen on her cheeks, sniffling a bit, "When do you think I can go home?"

"Well, I talked to your doctor, and he says that you'll be able to go home next week, actually–" at this, Melora's face lit up, "–provided you stay in your wheel chair for two weeks, and then use a cane to get around after that."

"And the morphine?"

"They'll give you a supply, but it's best if someone else administers it..."

"...because then at least someone else knows how much I'm taking, and there's less chance I'll abuse it. God, I never thought I'd come to this. Well, obviously Edward can't give me a shot, what am I supposed to do for the pain?"

Paula took a breath and swayed in her chair, looking hesitant. Melora lifted her eyebrows. "I was thinking that I'd do it."

Melora scoffed. "For that you would have to live with me! I can't just be in pain when it conveniences you to come over. Besides, how would I contact you, I don't have a phone."

"I was actually going to suggest that I come and live with you for a while."

"Don't be ridiculous. I can't support you; Edward would never talk to me again."

"I practically live there anyways! I go over there every chance I get that I'm not either doing your job for you or here keeping you company, or when I'm not in school. I hate having to deal with all the stress at home, and school's not much better. I don't know if you heard about this from Brian, but there's a love-hate-love triangle slash square forming around you."

"Excuse me? Brian never mentions anything like that when he comes to visit me. He just sits there and talks and talks, and I put up with it because handicapped people have to." Melora huffed, recalling how her hospital room was crowded with roses.

"He wouldn't. All he can see is you; everybody else is like snow melting around him."

""I feel kind of sorry for him; nobody should have to experience the pain of unrequited love. So what exactly is this love polygon you're talking about?"

"It's actually kind of personal," Paula sighed, "the girl who currently likes Brian is like the queen bee at my high school. I suppose she feels a sense of entitlement: she's the queen of the school, and Brian with all of his charm and good looks is the prince of every girl's locker door. It only makes things worse when she realizes that instead of claiming his throne as king of the highschool by dating her after taking her out to the Sadie-Hawkin's dance, she's been overlooked for some homeless artsy fartsy freak who lives in the abandoned house at the top of the hill."

"Homeless _and_ insane." Melora sniffed proudly from her wheel chair.

"Right," Paula continued, "especially since you refuse to date him–I suppose she could forgive him if it was just a passing thing and he came to his senses, but everyone knows that he's been ditching his friends to spend time with you during visiting hours. So now this girl is saying that you're a lesbian and a cock-tease, and people are starting to believe it, especially since everybody sees me taking care of you and practically living in your house.

"Of course, she doesn't have anything against me personally..." Melora said, "but she hopes that Brian will feel pressure to stop chasing me if his friends ridicule him for barking up the wrong tree entirely. So why is this personal for you?"

Paula sighed. "Angela and I had...a thing...as children. I loved her even before I knew what a lesbian was. And I'm pretty sure she loved me. We were way more than just best friends, even if we didn't do anything physical. People tend to brush it off when it's in kindergarten, but Angela was writing me love letters in middle school, despite all the adults who encouraged her to start hanging out with boys. It would have been pretty bad if either of us were...you know...butch, but we're both pretty femme. I think we could have gotten away with it if we had kept it a secret, but by the seventh grade Angela couldn't take the peer pressure from all of her friends to stop hanging out with such an unpopular girl, so she stopped talking to me. That was very hard." Paula bit her lip at this, "and I made a fool of myself trying to get back in her good graces. Finally by highschool, Angela told everyone that I was a heart-sick dyke who would obsess over any poor straight victim who would talk to me or try to be nice with me, and Angela made it out like she was trying to protect me before by indulging my little fantasy, but now she had to tell people so that other straight girls like her wouldn't fall prey to me. It was the kindest thing to do, she said."

"This is starting to sound like the premise of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. You love, or loved, Angela, who loves Brian, who loves me, who loves Edward, and the only one who feels like the feeling is somewhat mutual is me...although to what extent, I don't even know. Edward's heart is fathomless still."

"I'm not sure I would call what Angela feels 'love.' She's a really bright girl, I would know, but she makes herself two dimensional because she thinks that's what guys want. She's just got a lot of pride masking all her insecurities, and if possessing Brian would elevate her status among her friends, she'll get what she wants." Paula said bitterly.

"She can't be all that bright if she can't see that Brian is going after me because he thinks I'm some treasure to uncover. I frankly wish someone would get his attention off of me; maybe Angela shouldn't try to dumb herself down so much. She's got a bigger chance of attracting Brian's attention that way."

Paula nodded with agreement. The pair was silent for a while, mulling over the implications of such a drama, when Paula suddenly asked, "So, can I move in?"

Melora glared at Paula for a few moments. Then, dropping her forehead into the palm of her hand and sighing, she said, "All right. But then I'll have to **kill** you."

"Yay!"

Melora lay in her hospital bed, a book forgotten in her lap. She gazed outside at the rain drumming down on the green, and was still. Her mind was out there, on top of the hill that she could not even see from her window, surrounded by his flowers. She was a caterpillar on the stem of a geranium, drinking from a droplet of water, massaging herself on a leaf. She swayed in the breeze, and the sound of blades with the falling rain was music in her ears. She climbed to the top of the plant, scaling the soft petals to lie in the center of the blood red bloom. The caterpillar with Melora's face arched back to expose her soft underbelly and tiny wiggling feet, and added her voice to the song. She clung with her little claw feet to the crimson flower as it was tossed about like a ship in the storm by both wind and rain, and sang her heart out. Her voice seemed to be carried up with the breeze, magnified to join the chorus of nature. It was a song that couldn't be heard unless you got down to its level. Melora wondered if Edward had been listening to it long before she ever had.

"Melora?"

Jolted back suddenly to her hospital room, Melora did not immediately acknowledge the voice that had called her name. After taking a moment to regain her composure, she slowly turned to look at the boy in the door frame.

"Hello, Brian."

"I brought you some chocolates. Can I come in?"

"Just for a little while. I'm tired."

Brian set the small box of chocolates down on the night table and sat down. "How are you feeling?"

"Better. My ribs still hurt a little, but the main thing is this huge hole in my tummy. I swear, if I didn't have morphine every day to make me stupid, the pain from this thing would make me want to punch a baby." Melora said, jokingly.

Brian looked a little disturbed, but didn't make a remark. "Have they managed to filter out most of the toxins?"

"By now, yeah. I'm going home soon; I'd probably have to stay two more months if it had been something like a burst appendix, but this was much cleaner than that."

They remained there, talking of inconsequential things, for a quarter of an hour more. Finally, Brian sighed and asked Melora, "Mel, is there somebody else?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, is the reason you wont go out with me because you love somebody else?"

Melora gazed at Brian from her bed. She really did feel sorry for him, and maybe in another life he could have been her boyfriend. There was a lot to him; he wasn't just some dumb jock, Melora could see that. He wanted to rise above his stereotype because he understood that there was more than just going to highschool and dating pretty girls.

"Brian, you're really sweet, and I think you'd make a terrific boyfriend, but right now I need to be on my own. It's nothing personal, I just can't deal with a relationship right now."

Brian looked confused. "How...I don't understand. Don't you want to want to date guys? How are you supposed to get married on day if you don't have boyfriends now?"

Melora didn't want to show how offensive Brian's words were to her; she knew that he wasn't trying to be chauvanist. "I realize you've probably never met a girl who didn't want to get married or date. But sometimes a girl's life can't revolve around a man; it has to revolve around her own hopes and dreams," Melora continued, "don't you get it? I have _no_ memories of my past; I'm living on the extremely generous support of my friend, I wont be able to start working for another two weeks, and I'm mentally unstable. I'm running a high risk of becoming addicted to morphine, and my good standing with everyone in suburbia is on really fragile ground after what happened at the barbecue. I have to get all of this stuff sorted out before I can even think about what I want to do with my life, and I can't date anyone before I get that figured out."

"When do you think that will happen?" Brian asked hopefully, "because I'd be willing to wait. I could wait forever for you."

Melora's heart broke for him; he looked so desperate. She hated being the cause of such anguish; how could she end his suffering without being cruel?

"I don't want you to wait forever, Brian. I want you to forget about me, at least as a potential lover. Like I said, you're incredibly sweet, but I really just can't see myself with you. I don't love you, and I need to be on my own." Melora prayed that Brian understood this without being too crushed.

"Oh." Brian said. He wasn't looking at her any more. "Oh," he said again. He stood up and went to the door; Melora following him with her eyes expectantly. As Brian reached the door frame, his eyes darted to Melora's face. "I think you're _mean_, and _cruel,_ and you think you're better than everybody else, living like a princess in your tower. I wish I never met you." And then he was gone.


	13. Chapter 13

A/n: Hey everybody. Chapter 13, oooh.

I'm sorry updates haven't been coming faster, but I wasn't kidding when I said school leaves me with no free time. Lucky for all of us, then, that the week of cancelled classes left me with some free time, eh?

I'm going to take the time here to send out a request: if any of you would be interested in beta-ing for me, please contact me! I need beta readers, not only for future chapters but for the past ones as well. As beta readers, you could tell me what you like, what you don't like, what you want to see more of, what needs explaining, what doesn't need quite so much explanation, etc. You'd also be able to point out specific scenes for me to illustrate; eventually I want to finish this story, edit it to make it more coherent, and fully illustrate it. At that point, this story would have its own website, of course. Already I am working on a project to illustrate the original poem that inspired this story, which can be found at the beginning of chapter two.

That's all for announcements, please RnR, as always!

_I don't want to breathe, I don't want to move, I don't want to leave here_

_See what I am, See what I know, See what I see_

_I chew the tongue_

_Who whispered the fortune_

_"There's nothing left but a twisted devotion"..._

_Liquid diamonds roll down my skin_

_And the wind whispers around me_

_Dark place..._

_A sweetness that I've never known_

_Hits me like a storm in the ocean_

_Dark face..._

_Dark love..._

_I'll take you_

_Like a stormy ocean_

_It's not enough_

_I need more..._

_Oh wicked thoughts_

_From where did you come?_

_Dark things breathe their heated sighs_

_I kiss the cheek_

_And eat the mouth_

_And taste the tongue that never lies_

Johnny Hollow, "Dark Thing"

Melora gazed out of the car window at the pastel houses as they went by. Paula sat in the front seat, her father drove. None of them said anything to each other. That was fine with Melora; she had nothing to say. The rain had let up for a little while, but the darkened sky had not gone away. The trees burned bright red and orange against it, their rain-soaked trunks black ribbons of ink that bled together in the distance. A small part of Melora was secretly thankful that Paula was moving in; Melora now wondered if she was ever really prepared to face the hardships winter would inevitably bring on her own.

But like the inevitability of the changing seasons, Melora's mind always turned back to Edward. How terrified he must be, Melora thought, shutting himself up like a genie in a bottle up there. Had he given up all hope of Melora's return? Or was he too disgusted with Paula's invasion of his world, and the way Melora had let it happen, to even care where she was?

If Melora had felt uneasy at the hospital, she now felt herself plunge deeper into that state of unrest. She would have to face her situation with Edward now, and if she ever wanted to see him again, she would have to come up with a plan of some sort to regain his trust and to limit their chances of coming into contact with the outside world even further. _Maybe it's a good thing the Paula is going to be temping for me for a little bit. _

The ride from the hospital to the hill seemed to take forever. Melora would doze off to dream of sailing in a ship, the horizon darkened by a looming island with a castle on it. In the highest tower stood Edward, his razor bladed hands throwing long shadows down to the rocks below. Melora's ship inevitably cracked itself against those jagged rocks, for she was too preoccupied with her spyglass to notice the danger. The shuddering of the wooden planks and the sound of wrenching metal was terrifying. Melora would see herself at the bottom of the hold, the splintered wood of the cross beam jutting out from her abdomen as water rushed in through the gaping holes in the ship. Always she would awaken with the house looming closer still through the windshield.

_I don't want it to be like this..._Melora thought as the car parked before the gate at the top of the driveway. Together, Paula and her father lifted Melora into her wheelchair, arranging a blanket over her lap to keep the autumnal cold out. As Paula went to unload the trunk, Melora peered through the wrought iron fence. Some of the flowers were still in bloom, and the hortisculpture looked as immaculate as ever. This made it harder for Melora to accept Edward's apparent absence as she searched the darkened windows for his figure, her eyes lingering too long on the attic window with all the glass in it gone. All she wanted was just to see his jet black eyes gazing back at her, if only for a moment. Suddenly Melora realized that the car was pulling out of the driveway, and she looked over her shoulder to see the canary yellow Cadillac backing down to be swallowed by the shadows of the hill. She felt strangely desperate to go with Paula's father, for a moment, knowing the emptiness that lay before her. _Emptiness before me. Emptiness behind me. Emptiness on all sides, without Edward to slash at the shadows and cut the pain away. _

"Enough of this poetry. Let's go inside." Melora muttered. Paula did not make any sign to show that she'd heard, save to push her companion over the dirt path towards the gate.

"What will you do when I'm at work, you think?" Paula asked her as they made their way towards the entrance.

"Sit in my chair and weep, probably," Melora said, reaching a hand down to caress the mist that hovered about the wheels. They passed several leafy antelopes and flower beds as they went, and Melora wondered at how for so long she'd visited the garden in her mind, fantasizing about how it would feel to be back home again, but the feeling Melora had now was not the one she'd expected: fear. "Maybe I'll paint some. Or I'll write letters to Edward about how much I miss him, and I'll tape them to the walls and cover the whole house with them, and it won't make any difference because he can't read."

"I think I'd like to see what you'd be painting these days," Paula's voice echoed at they entered the house, the light from the tall Victorian windows colored with the tissue paper sun catchers Edward had cut out over the summer. "I would look at your canvases here when I would come up, and I was always so curious about them. Why did you stop painting?"

"A combination of a full schedule and sheer, blinding terror of what would happen if I started painting again, mostly." Melora replied.

Paula unpacked her things upstairs in the room Melora had originally claimed as her own. "It's too bad the Victorians didn't build handicap-friendly houses..." Paula said, "but I'm sure it won't be too bad, sleeping downstairs for two weeks. We can make it very comfortable."

* * *

Edward sat in a moldering velvet armchair, his eyes closed. He had sat there, unmoving, for the past couple of days. The pain in his arm was bearable so long as he didn't move more than he had to. It lay limp in his lap beside the other arm, only it rested at an awkward angle. At his forearm, bits of leather frayed to reveal dangling wires and sprockets; the machine equivalent of ligaments and tendons. A mixture of blood and oil stained the opening. Edward had never suffered a wound like this. He had felt the disorientation and ache when Jim had beaten him over the back with a piece of lumber, but the only blood Edward had ever bled came from small cuts on his face occasionally. This pain didn't go away like the pain of a cut; it was constant and it invaded his body like a disease.

He had been like this for a long time; ever since the ceiling had collapsed, ever since Melora had been dragged off of him and he never saw her again. Edward remembered the weight of the beams upon him, and the soft scent of Melora surrounding him. Her hair had made a veil over his face, the flesh of her skin soft and smooth against his cheek. The contrast between those pleasant feelings and the awful, crushing pain in his arm and the awkward pain of his legs pinned down in a weird position confused him. Edward had opened his eyes. All he could see was the sky through a thin sheet of dust and blond hair. He didn't dare say a word as the strange woman who had found him in the bathroom came in, calling Melora's name and shrieking at the sight of both of them. He closed his eyes in hopes that she would take care of Melora first, possibly giving him a chance to escape. Clouds of dust rose as the wooden boards were lifted and heaved to the side. Edward felt Melora shift, but it was only the woman sliding her arms under his companion's chest. Edward prayed that she would ignore him. Edward couldn't help but crack open his eyes a bit when he felt something strange—his arm was being pulled with Melora as the woman lifted her up.

Edward gazed in horror as he saw Melora's pale limp arms dangling over her friend's arm, covered in scratches. Her head rolled like a rag-doll's, and there was blood in the thick of her hair. It was only until Melora was given another tug that Edward realized that his blades were buried half-way into the stomach of his companion; they slid out finally and thudded to the floor. With them came a gush of blood, and Paula's panicked cries. Edward felt ill, and wanted to call out to Melora, desperately needing to know if she could hear him, needing to know whether or not she would be alright.

But Melora's pale form was carried into the darkness, and all was quiet for a time. Edward made several attempts to push the huge crossbeam off of his chest before he succeeded; each time he had to pause as a wave of nausea overcame him. Edward struggled to his feet, nearly passing out as a torrent of oil and blood left the break in his arm. And oh, the _pain..._Stumbling awkwardly, Edward made his way down the attic stairs, reaching the tier above the main room. Leaning on the rail for support, he saw Melora lying on the floor by the door. A towel was gathered over her stomach, what used to be white terrycloth was now bright red. She looked deathly white, and her stillness terrified Edward.

Edward called down to her, summoning all his strength. Edward thought his voice should have been much louder for all the effort he was putting behind it, but the sound was small and weak. And even if Edward had managed to really shout, somehow he knew that Melora would not hear him.

_Please, don't leave me here, Melora..._Edward could not tell if he was actually speaking or if he simply thought these words. He was seeing stars. Edward wondered if Melora was already dead, and maybe he was about to die.

Edward didn't have time to continue the thought; at that moment the door opened and Paula entered, her harsh breathing filling the entire room. Edward immediately sank back into the shadows.

_I can't let her find me..._Edward thought. Melora may have trusted her, but she was from suburbia and Edward didn't want to take a chance. Maybe Paula could help Melora, but there was nothing, Edward was sure, that she could do for him, except maybe bring his companion back. As the sounds of sirens filled the mansion, Edward quietly made his way through the halls of the upper levels, retreating into the unused, dusty part of the house that Melora never bothered to clean.

The mansion was certainly as large on the inside as it was on the outside. Melora had only been interested in what she needed; but had it been her desire the house would have revealed to her countless sitting rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, terraces, aviaries, nurseries and most of all—workshops. It was to one such workshop that Edward fled, knowing that if anyone tried to look for him, they would never be able to pick him out from behind all the other broken animatrons and assembly line parts. There he collapsed behind a pile of junk, and did not open his eyes for a long time.

* * *

When next Edward awoke, there was sunlight coming in through the tall windows. It had been day when the roof caved in; how long had he been asleep? While his creator had been a brilliant man, one thing he missed while putting his creation together was an internal clock. Edward looked to his arm. He could smell the oil that oozed out of the break, and the fact vaguely horrified him. Edward had never associated with himself a smell, except perhaps the smell of leather and iron; but these smells were so ordinary to him by now that the smell of oil seemed almost disgusting in comparison. There was less blood now than there had been; the oil seemed to be gumming up and sealing the blood inside as it dried.

Edward sat up slowly. Already, the careful job Melora had done of brushing his hair was ruined; Edward's hair stuck out every which way.

_Melora..._Edward carefully rose to his feet. Was she back yet? Edward was not familiar with illness or recovery; for him, humans kept going until they one day just stopped, like his creator, or like Jim. The implications of such a fate for Melora suddenly struck Edward. One minute, she'd been smiling down at him, touching him with her hands, telling him everything would be alright—and the next, she was lying on the floor of the main room, white as a sheet and unmoving. Then, would everything go back to the way it was before she had come? Would time mock him with its empty, listless hours for years and years? Humans stopped. Edward wasn't so sure about himself. Melora had said that if he really wanted to, Edward could end it all. But what did she know?

_Oh Melora..._Edward gazed about him at the discarded machines. What if he failed at an attempt and his life remained intact, in spite of a broken body? The horror, to be trapped in a fragment of one's former self!

Edward chastised himself then, for contemplating suicide when he did not even know for sure whether or not Melora was...truly gone. What if she was alive, somewhere, and waiting for the chance to return to him?

A spasm of pain went through him. Edward looked down. His right arm, the wounded one, had given a few involuntary snips. He examined it closely, unable to really lift from the shoulder from the pain it caused. The oil was getting everywhere, dulling the gloss of his leather suit. Edward wondered what could be done for the wound. The cuts on his face invariably healed, but something told him that this sort of wound would not on its own.

Something caught his eye. Edward peered closer.

_That's right._ Edward thought as his knees hit the floor; _I pierced her. _The dried blood was dark against the bright polished steel of Edward's scissorhands. The image of his blades sunken deep into the tender flesh of his companion burned in Edward's mind.

Edward was up on his feet in an instant. He was gone, disappearing into the darkness of the house, his mind searching ruthlessly for something, anything, to take his violent self-loathing out on. Four tracks were scored deep into the corridor, Edward's blades bouncing off iron doorknobs and slamming against corners. Edward's face twisted into a grimace as the impact shot wires of pain through his arm; the feeling was suddenly something he craved more of. Slamming open a door to his left, he found what once was a master bathroom, the frosted glass opaque but allowing sunlight to illuminate the room. Edward headed straight for the yellowed drapes, clenching his teeth as the fabric tore in his razor-bladed grasp. Slashing, tearing, cutting, the drapes were reduced to scraps in a matter of seconds. Edward's breath rasped from his throat; there had to be more to destroy!

Suddenly Edward caught a movement in the corner of his eye. Turning, it was just the muddied reflection of himself in the tall mirror above the sink. Drawing nearer to it, Edward could see his face behind a fine tracery of dulled tarnished silver. Edward could not sweat, but he was exhausted for some reason. Why was he so tired? Why was he so weak? Edward leaned with his good arm against the sink.

The self loathing was a poison inside of him, consuming his mind and tainting his vision. At the bottom of his heart, Edward ultimately needed to destroy himself to quench this rage. _Everything I touch, I destroy. Everyone that I love leaves me and dies. I am a curse. All I do is cause others to suffer. I wish I was never created. _ _I wish I was dead. _Edward thought over and over again, repeating the mantra as he gazed into his own eyes with hatred.

Pushing himself off the sink, Edward stalked about the bathroom, striking out at the walls in agitation. This was getting him nowhere. What could he do?

Did humans ever feel this same sort of self-destructive force? What did they do when they felt this way? As Edward caught his gaze in the mirror, his reflection seemed to tell him, _They cry, Edward. They cry and then, somehow, they feel better._

Really? Was that all there was to human suffering? They cried and then they felt better? Edward closed his eyes. Somehow, it seemed too simple. And yet, he'd seen Melora cry; once, when she had turned into smoke for a few seconds, and the other time, when he'd accidentally slashed the tips of her fingers. Edward winced with guilt at the memory. Her tears had been immediate, natural, and completely unforced. Had she really felt better after the release of those few tears? How could the release of water from the eyelids have any affect on one's emotions?

Edward had never cried. No matter how bad things got, he had never felt the urge to cry. Was it because he lacked tear-ducts? Or was it because he simply lacked that sort of humanity? Edward hoped and prayed that it was the former. If he truly was capable of crying, that meant that not even Kim's absence could move him to tears. Edward could not tolerate the thought of being that inhuman.

Once again, Edward looked at his reflection. Black marbles set into porcelain, with a wild mane of black hair. Beneath that, he was simply an outline of a man. There was nothing human about the belts and buckles, the leather and the vinyl, the scissors and the oil. The doubt of his inward humanity remained.

_How do I start crying? _Edward thought, _how do I go_ _about it? _

He closed his eyes and tried to bring his feelings of self loathing to the fore. He thought about how terrified Paula looked when she first found him hiding in the bathroom. He thought about Melora's dangling arms and lolling head, the way her ankles dragged over the floorboards lifelessly as she was pulled away from him. When no tears came, Edward searched deeper into his memory. He remembered slashing Kim's palm, just before everything really fell apart in suburbia. He thought about how he had tried to save her little brother from Jim's van, and instead ended up cutting his face and hands. He thought about the emptiness he felt after Kim left for the last time, the rushed kiss goodbye and the silence afterwards. He thought about the way Melora did not move when he tried to call out to her; how she simply lay there and bled.

A tightness was growing in Edward's chest; the pain of simply existing was becoming too great. Edward wanted to rip up every single pair of drapes in the house; he wanted to destroy a mattress; he wanted to throw himself from the attic window. Still no tears would come.

Edward once more forced himself to imagine another sixty, seventy, eighty years alone in that house, because of his own inhumanity. He imagined the endless days and nights of doing nothing, of cutting hedges in the spring and sculpting ice in the winter. He would never taste Melora's rhubarb pie, he would never watch her paint or sew again, he would never hold her in his arms again, and he would never, ever feel her gentle kiss again. She would never come back for him, and forever he would be in this world, and she would be in the next.

Edward caught himself on the rim of the sink, gasping as his legs buckled beneath him. He wanted to cry so desperately; he _needed_ to cry, to feel some sort of release against the overwhelming weight of his sadness and pain. The tears never came.

Frantically, Edward scraped his blades against the knobs of the sink. There was a cranking, shuddering noise deep within the walls, and the faucet spluttered and the water ran rusty like mud for a minute or so. Slowly, the water turned clear, and Edward lowered his face beneath the jet. First one side of his face, and then the other. Then, righting himself, Edward looked in the mirror. His face was wet, and drops of water coursed down his cheeks. _But it wasn't the same at all!_

Edward cried out, slamming his palm into the wall beside the mirror. Gritting his teeth and glaring at his reflection, Edward lifted the tip of one razor-blade and slashed the flesh of his face, once, twice, below each eye. When he saw the bright red blood slowly run down his face, mixing with the water to make a continuous drip off the sides of his jaw, Edward released a long sigh. His eyes fluttered closed. The sting of the cuts seemed to suddenly silence all the noise in Edward's mind; the simple pulse and throb of the wounds brought him back to the present moment.

Edward felt exhausted, but he also felt emptied. It was a strange feeling, the emptiness and the tiredness at the same time. Edward had never felt either before. Strange for a being that never slept to feel tired. Strange for a being who never cried to feel empty. And yet, it was just that. Edward was a basin of water that had been tipped over and emptied. Standing there, he felt hollow, like the sands of time could blow endlessly through him and leave no trace.

He left the bathroom then, and found an empty bedchamber to collapse in. He didn't want to be aware of the next few hours; all thoughts of Paula and Melora and the next sixty years were put on hold as Edward arranged himself over the cold soft blankets of an ancient bed. Deep within his chest, a balance wheel tipped, a weight lifted, and a spring unwound itself; Edward closed his eyes and all non-essential functions ceased for a time.


	14. Chapter 14

A/n: It may have been a long wait, but here it is, and at ten pages it's a pretty hefty chapter. I'm a little disappointed in the writing in some parts; the sentence structure gets kind repetitive and the style is stiff. But, I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is really a rough draft...and what else could it be, it's taken me years to write this and obviously the beginning is going to be nothing like the middle or the end on the first edit. So, please enjoy, and please leave reviews; I always enjoy them tremendously whether fluff or constructive criticism (no flames so far crosses fingers).

_Singing the hum of the walking dead.  
Thinking of every word that you said.  
Singing as garden walls ripple with the blur of bees,  
Sweetly singing as sunlight streams through the aching trees,  
Voices trampling the exhausted wilderness,  
Singing the hum of the walking dead.  
Burning like the gaze upon a faithless friend  
Burning down the lonely trees always in the end  
Voices trampling the exhausted wilderness,  
Dragging the heels of the walking dead.  
Dragging out every word that you said.  
_Faith and the Muse, "Visions"

"Paula...Paula..." Melora sighed, lolling her head about on her shoulders.

"What is it, Mel?" The tall red-head glided out from the kitchen, a long wooden spoon in hand.

Melora sat before her studio, the back of her wheelchair turned to the rest of the house. Her eyes were rimmed red, and she gripped the handlebars of her chair to hide how her hands trembled. "I hurt," Melora said.

"Want me to get a shot?" Paula asked.

Melora closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. "No," she let out a long breath. "I want you to get me my sketchbook. I want my box of crayons too. Under the couch there."

Melora felt the metal coil press into her hand. The pages were cool to the touch; chilled from the months spent within a dark suitcase. She waited until Paula had left to go back into the kitchen, and then carefully opened the box of crayons. Melora held them up to her nose, slowly inhaling. Wax, and something stale. Sour. Like vinegar. The scent of decaying crayons; the smell of rotting childhood. Melora chose the black one.

* * *

When Edward next awoke it was the middle of the day, judging by the warm, direct sunlight coming in through the windows. _But which day?_ Edward couldn't be sure. He had some difficulty pushing himself off the large bed, the feeling in his right arm totally gone. Once righted, Edward again felt a rush of dizziness, his vision clouding for a moment.

The narrow hallway was dark, the deep tracks scored in the walls only faintly visible. It was hard to keep his eyes focused; things blurred and ran together. His movements were slow and imprecise. Cautiously, Edward made his way towards the balcony overlooking the main room on the lower floor. He saw no one. Leaning against the railing, he gently put his weight down through each foot, step by step. Descending the staircase was hard; his eyes didn't seem to be functioning too well and when he looked back he could see several ghost Edwards trailing behind him.

The house was empty. Wandering into the kitchen, Edward saw the sink was filled with his creator's ancient china, now soiled from the barbecue. Flies were starting to land there. Edward thought about how Melora would be displeased to see flies in the kitchen, but he lacked the strength to shoo them away. On the cutting table were two crystal glasses. They were almost ridiculous, so solitary and upright and yet completely without purpose, now that no one would drink from them. Edward would not touch them; such glasses would tumble and shatter in his razor-bladed grasp. Melora would be upset if she found out her fine crystal was broken.

Instead, Edward awkwardly sat down to the cutting table. He folded his arms in his lap and gazed at the glass before him. Had it been drained by Melora, or her friend? The crystal fractured and swam in Edward's eyes, now dimmed and sluggish in their movement. Edward studied each facet of the glass carefully, forgetting his surroundings to contemplate the tiny dried print of what could have been Melora's lips on the rim. Milk pooled in the bottom, now slightly yellowed for being left out. The thin film of it left concentric rings that, for some reason, had a calming effect on Edward's mind as he studied them. They were white and blue on the glass, and Edward was sure that if he could hold the glass up to the light, the rings would glow. He studied the crystal goblet before him in this way for a long time, sitting perfectly still on the stool. He memorized every detail of it, or as best as he could with his failing vision.

By the time it had occurred to Edward that there were other things to do, the sunlight had faded somewhat. Lifting slowly, Edward wandered out into the garden. The sunlight felt warm on his face, the scent of the garden welcome to him. As he went deeper into the garden, however, his heart began to sink. The ground beneath his feet was ridden with open earth. Dirt was up heaved and tossed about. Someone had been in there, someone probably from the barbecue, and had aimed to despoil the beauty Edward worked so hard to preserve. Surveying the damage, it didn't seem too permanent, however. The flower beds would recover, and new grass would grow in time. Inspecting the hortisculpture as best as he could, Edward was relieved to find that they had gone untouched. Damage to the topiary would have been far more permanent and harder to repair. For now, Edward would have to deal with the challenge of maintaining their shape in spite of his utterly useless right arm. It was probably a good thing that his creator did not think to install within Edward a preference for one side of the body for the other; Edward could manage with just his left arm, though it would take twice as long.

Stroking the flank of one leafy brontosaurus with a razor-tipped appendage, Edward knew he was avoiding something. He glanced back to the house, the shadows growing longer as the sun made its descent towards the horizon. He sighed. He could pretend all he liked; he could lose himself in Melora's dishes and cups, in all the traces of her that she had left so painfully recently; but it was useless to ignore the reality of the situation: Mel was gone. Her pallid form had lain sprawled in the doorway of the house, unmoving, and then she wasn't there at all. Suburbia had swallowed her, taken her far away. She was human after all—there was nothing Edward could do to help her. Edward, not for the first time, was reminded of the vast gulf between him and any other person, and how very little he mattered in the way of things.

_I could try to find her._

Edward clenched his blades together, absently tearing out a handful of leaves.

_I may have killed her._ Edward trembled slightly. Edward could not bear the thought–that once again he and his "handicap" had caused his own marooning. Edward looked about him; the garden swam and jittered in his sight, but it was no less beautiful for it. What good was its beauty, to what purpose did he toil for hours in it, if Melora was not by his side to witness it? How he envied those blissful days when she would return from work to take off her shoes and go running in the grass—he had watched her then, immersing himself in her freedom, her naked arms and legs that could feel his garden like he never would. How was she able to find the patience within herself to stand by someone so cut off from his surroundings, he could not understand.

No. He could not, would not, venture once more into suburbia. The house was the only place for him. Edward could not be sure about these things, but somewhere deep in his clockwork mind it was possible there lay a belief that the town below could sense it when the natural order had been disturbed, and all a manner of traps would spring should he dare walk amongst humans as if he were one of them.

_And besides...even if she is alive..._At once, Edward plunged his blades deep into the bush beside him. He had not meant to.

_No. I didn't mean to. But it happened anyways. _

Edward disentangled himself from the innocent shrub and haltingly made his way back to the house.

_Even if she is alive, she must hate me._ Edward disappeared into the house, the shadows of the empty room swallowing him whole.

* * *

It would be a very long month for Edward. Often, he would awake at odd hours of the day, not remembering how he got to be in the room that he was. He could no longer feel his right arm, nor could he feel most of the right side of his chest. With each day, he felt a chill seep deeper and deeper into his body. He no longer dared to look in mirrors; the sight of himself had become too frightening. His skin had lost all natural color, his features looked hard and expressionless. Once, while lying on some ancient bed, too tired to move, Edward tried to sing a song. The sound that came out of his mouth was so wooden and hollow that he quickly shut his mouth and never opened it afterwards.

Every week, Edward would summon all of his strength to go outside and tend to the garden. At first he would do this during the day, often sitting in his flower beds and just listening to the dying annuals swaying. Sometimes he fancied he could hear the leaves turning yellow and red. He would maintain a level of neatness and order there that he found acceptable, but no more did he unleash himself upon a protean bush to do his special sort of art. It would be just two weeks before Edward noticed something was not right. The dirty dishes and cups that Edward took special care to avoid looking at were now clean and put in their proper place. Things had become tidy in the main room; Melora's sewing patterns had been all picked up from the floor and put back in their envelopes. Things were dusted, arranged, and ordered. The sight, dim as it was in Edward's head, left him feeling ever colder as the days went by. It didn't take long for him to suspect that there was another who came and touched those objects that Melora had brought to life. Of course it was Paula, Melora's friend from the village.

She came and she left her fingerprints on everything. As much as she cleaned, she only dirtied with her presence. Had Edward known any wards against bad luck, he would have made them against her. Instead, he retreated even further into the house, now never walking about in the places Melora had claimed, and even then only at night. Paula and he were like two ships passing in the night; each a phantom to the other.

As for Paula, she had started coming to the house on the pretense of wanting it to be ready for Melora when she came back. If Paula was to be honest with herself, she could not escape the guilt she felt for having disturbed Melora and her invisible companion so greatly. There was nothing that upset Paula more than being a nuisance. She was not the sort of person who enjoyed being noticed; she took great care in her daily life to wear very plain clothes, and to speak as little as possible. Her existence in the years before Melora had come to Suburbia was best described as a lonely one; with her one friend sailing for other shores, Paula hoped that she could prove useful enough that Melora would keep her company. Melora's arrival had changed things in Suburbia, however unaware of it she might be. Paula noticed. Oh, the effects had been small, but they were like ripples. They snowballed, growing larger as they traveled further away from the source. People were so curious about her. They tried to welcome her. Brian wanted to date her. The barbecue. They assumed she wouldn't mind that they talked about her; talk was warranted in a town like this, for a stranger like that. And Paula later found out how Melora had thrown a casserole and screamed at the cookout. Disgraceful. She dared reject them; when everyone else had paid the price of acceptance by voiding their privacy. People resented her irreverence to the power of social acceptance. They resented her for the fact that she didn't care if they resented her.

All of this wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been so _obvious._ Perhaps they could have ignored her had Melora lived in some ugly third-rate house well hidden from the main roads. But Melora's view towered over suburbia; her house loomed above them and watched them like a scientist studies ants in an ant farm. She had the entire hill to herself; and the house on top of it was scandalous in itself, treading a strange line between falling to ruin and majestic. She had no family to speak of. No past. No prospects besides her petty little job as a video clerk.

It outraged people. Paula sensed it so clearly; they were outraged because they were _jealous._ They, Paula and Melora's neighbors, might have been content with their 1.5 children and pastel houses and tedious existence if not for the constant reminder that there was someone who lived outside of those rules and who, insult of insults, had no desire to fight for acceptance like everyone else did every moment of their lives. Paula herself had been fighting for some kind of acceptance for a long time now. And she recalled how she felt when Melora first moved in, how at first Paula had bristled and refused to even think of introducing herself to someone so disrespectful of social norms. She had resisted so very much what she didn't understand. To Paula, it was a slap in the face to see someone who could care less what people thought of her, when Paula had tried so hard to be taken seriously. Everyone was operating under the assumption that being an outcast meant the end of your life, that your existence would turn to shambles and you would never recover from that misery. Melora was living proof that that wasn't the case. Of course people were angry; of course they were jealous; Melora's continued existence in suburbia flied in the face of everything these people were ever taught. Something had to give, and soon. How long would it be before people started doing what they wanted to do instead of what they should? How long before people realized that social acceptance wasn't that important, especially if someone as young as Melora could ignore it? Oh, disaster. Paula knew these people; they had been living in this pressure cooker all their lives. Melora's desires were so innocent: privacy, artistic freedom, independence. What of the villager's desires? They had been trying to be good for so long, god knows they'd probably embrace the chance to be positively evil if they thought they could get away with it. Being good would soon lose it's appeal; and like children out of Eden, being bad would suddenly become terribly seductive. People were like that. When they didn't really believe in anything save for rewards, they became completely polarized.

Perhaps that's why Paula found herself coming more and more often to the mansion on the hill. In town, she could feel the ripples being cast on everyone. The anxiety, the nervous glances, it was too much. The more people pretended everything was alright, the more self conscious they became. Their agitation caused a widespread move to appear twice as conventional as was previously acceptable; Paula knew the pendulum had to come crashing back the other way sometime, and when it did she feared for Melora and Edward's existence. At least for the time being, staying within the walls of the house on the hill afforded some semblance of safe harbor, despite that in many ways it was the eye of the storm.

For one thing, the drama at Paula's school had become unbearable. All anyone ever talked about was how crazy Brian was to reject Angela's affections, and how Angela was doubling her efforts to win him over. She was going as far as digging up dirt on any girl who she suspected had any intention of asking Brian out. As far as Brian was concerned, Angela ruled with an iron fist. His obsession with Melora, the hospital visits, the expensive gifts, the new anti-social tendencies he was developing, was turning the small, close knit world of the suburban highschool upside-down. It was making everyone's lives difficult—and everyone couldn't decide if they hated Melora more for rejecting Brian, or for being the object of his affections in the first place. And now Paula's class mates were giving her glares—not because they believed she was a lesbian, but because she was possibly being a lesbian with Melora, which was even worse. Paula had to admit, she was around Melora more than even Brian was, and the way she was taking care of all her affairs and practically living in her house would have been a dead give-away in any other circumstance.

Melora was in some ways seductive to Paula, but much of that quality was simply the rush of being around someone so completely different from anyone she'd ever known. The underlying reason that Paula spent so much time with Melora and for Melora was probably because they were at the same stage of their lives in many ways. They were drawn to each other's company because of their similar romantic and societal status—they were both lonely women who were grateful to be less lonely together as they tried to make their way in the world. Paula found stability in Melora's seeming disinterest in men, but also sympathized deeply with her grief at the loss of Edward's presence, as Paula had felt the same after Angela had left her only a few years before.

When Melora was able to move back into the house, Paula would leave her for five out of seven days to work. It wasn't the best situation; Melora was allowed one shot of morphine in the morning and if she needed more she had to wait until the evening when Paula returned. Paula now slept upstairs, having permanently moved in. Her room overlooked the forest behind the house, and upon the mantle of her small fireplace she put her collection of porcelain dolls. When the weather turned chilly, Paula would curl up in her bed with all the blankets and read Jane Austen and the Bronte Sisters, and try not to feel too lonely.

Paula had hoped that a return to home might cheer Melora up, but in fact it was the exact opposite. Melora sat in her wheelchair, listlessly gazing out into the garden. She spent much of her time in the dark, refusing to turn on the few lamps they had, saying that they couldn't afford it. In the cold evenings, Melora would bend down from her chair and light a fire. Paula would return from work and try to make conversation, but Melora was always unresponsive. No, she didn't want to hear what Brian was up to, no, she did not care how much a fool Angela was making of herself. These people meant nothing to her. The rest of Suburbia could be struck by a meteor and Melora wouldn't notice.

After the two weeks passed, Melora was sent a cane by the hospital. The morphine dosage had lessened slightly and the few thin scars on Melora's arms and face had healed and turned white. By that time, Melora no longer looked out into the garden. She sat on the couch facing her studio, and took no more notice of the hours than she did Paula. Even though with her cane Melora could ascend the staircase, she chose to sleep on the couch downstairs instead. She never spoke of plans or goals to Paula; if Melora had any she kept them to herself. About her feet were crumpled drawings torn from her sketchbook. Her hands had become waxy and grey in places from her black crayon, but Melora only washed her hands before meals in those days.

Simply put, there was no signal. Melora could remember being able to feel like an open window in a storm, but now she felt more like a door bolted shut. If she tried to think about what she was going to draw, her ideas seemed so pathetic and stupid. Melora sought the place within herself that did not think but felt, the place that had the finished work ready and waiting inside to flow out from her hands and eyes and mouth. Melora gazed at the finished paintings that she had brought with her from before she lived in suburbia. They all seemed so close and yet so remote. Could she truly relate to the person she had been when she had created them? A vast gulf lay between her past and her present, and Melora did not feel ready to peer into this abyss but being stranded at home, there was little else to do.

When Paula left and the house was silent and nothing stirred, Melora would sit in the darkness with her eyes closed, sketchbook in hand, and try to recall the events that took place before she came to suburbia. She vaguely remembered walking, and it had been as if in sleep. As Melora tried to remember, she kept the crayon moving over the paper. In and out she breathed, circling her hand continuously. The sound of the wax stick on paper was at once soothing and nerve-wracking to her. There was so much desperation in that little crayon, but Melora refused to become overwhelmed.

Melora continued like this for several days. After a few attempts Melora soon realized that she was indeed making some sort of art, but as soon as she opened her eyes a strange thing would happen: she would crumple up the paper and toss it into the fire, or into the lit stove. Melora would stand there, not remembering how or why she had crossed the room. It was only when she looked to the burning logs of the fireplace that she saw the curling fistfuls of paper and knew what she had done. Part of her wanted to bang her cane against the walls and scream in frustration; another part was silently grateful, and Melora did not know why.

Soon it became less important to uncover the secrets of her past, and more to simply produce art of any kind. Melora switched to India Ink and a thick brush, hoping that the ink would suggest something in its random halting and spreading over the page. She worked by kneeling on the floor, a stack of paper to one side and a pot of ink and water to the other. Holding the brush near the top of the handle, Melora tried to clear her mind of all thought. This was hard at first, but gradually grew easier.

Lowering the brush to the paper, the sound of the trees outside filled her, the feel of the floor boards pushed all questions from her. No past, no future, only the present state mattered. Only the black ink against white paper held her attention, until Melora fell down through the black and was tossed up on the white, like a shipwrecked sailor. She walked those shores barefoot, her clothes rotted and stiff on her back, the white sand soft and cold. That beach seemed to stretch on forever, and with each step she could hear the grains of sand shifting beneath her feet. The black waves were silent and icy, cutting at her ankles like blades. Overhead birds wheeled, but they made no sound and were too high up to be more than black shapes against a grey sky. Melora continued to walk. Soon she was climbing; trees surrounded her. Melora would not look to the right nor to the left; it was only up and up she would focus on, though her feet were bare and stung from nettles. Someone was calling her.

After what could have only been hours, Melora reached the top of the hill. She pushed open the wrought iron gates without hesitation, only stopping to pull a leaf from her hair.

"It's about time you got here."

Melora turned her head in surprise. She was suddenly aware that she was no longer painting on the floor of the mansion, but rather standing outside of it. Everything was different—the house was completely intact, and the garden was a proper English garden without any sculpture to be seen. And in the middle of it, smirking cheekily, was a young boy.

Melora gazed at him from the gate, feeling only half in control of her thoughts and movements. "Who are you?"

The boy was wearing a straw hat with a black ribbon around the crown. His shirt was peter pan collared and tucked into a pair of shorts that came only to his mid-thighs. His socks were ribbed and pulled up to the knee, and on his feet he wore lace up brown leather shoes. In one hand he held a pair of scissors. "I'm Edward." Then, grinning, he said: "I've been waiting for you for about a hundred and sixty years."

Melora slowly approached him. He seemed only half real; not quite as fully animated as a genuine person. He kept giving her the same look over that cheeky smile of his; his weight shifted repetitively from foot to foot in the same manner every time. "Waiting for me?" Suddenly, Melora knew. They were garden shears. Under that straw hat was a head of black hair as soft as down feathers. The smile had thrown her off of course; how often had her Edward smiled? But the eyes were the same black pools deeply set into marble white skin.

"You look a mess. Let's go inside; I have to show you something before you return. You'll have to wake up soon, you've stopped breathing." Edward took Melora by the hand and led her to the front door. The boy could have only been ten years old.

Within the house it was warm and bright, despite the eternal charcoal grey of the walls. Melora recognized the couch, only now it was new; the frame was polished mahogany and the red velvet cushions were not faded or torn. The kitchen looked much the same. Sitting at the cutting table was a woman dressed in nightclothes; her figure drooped and from the corner of her mouth was a trail of saliva.

"Aunt Sarah," Edward said, "the laudanum makes her sleepy."

Melora approached her. The newspaper beneath her splayed hands looked brand new, but the typeface was much smaller than modern newspapers, and instead of photographs there were but a few lithographed drawings, advertising canned goods and ladies' shoes. The date read May 12th, 1840.

"Come into the sitting room, Melora. There's someone I want you to meet."

Melora felt nervous as she walked forth into the sitting room. She avoided the spot on the floor where she knew her body probably lay slumped over her ink pots; though she could not see it, she could sense it there, like a dead rat covered by a rug.

"You're not the one who's dead, Mel. I am." Edward said, motioning to the casket on one side of the wall. Suddenly Edward disappeared. Melora looked around, frightened, unsure of what to do. The sitting room was decorated in black ribbons, the curtains drawn. White lilies in vases rested on a few table tops. Three women, their faces shrouded in black veils, sat over tables set with tea and small sandwiches. Next to the casket a man was packing up a large box with a lense on the front. As Melora drew closer to the coffin, she saw a man leaning against it. He looked very familiar, but before Melora could remember who he was, she saw Edward lying in the padded silk box, looking up at her. He was still clasping a bouquet of white lilies to his breast.

"You can probably still find my picture somewhere in father's things; it was the only picture anyone ever took of me." Edward said a little sadly. "That's father there. He's got nobody now, except for his sisters. Aunt Sarah will be the first to go; she died in 1843 of laudanum overdose. Maybe you'll do the same one day, aren't you taking something like it? You leave a strange taste in my mouth that seems familiar enough. Then Aunt Elizabeth in 1845, Aunt Victoria three months later, and lastly Aunt Cathy in 1852," Edward sighed, "there are so many ways to die, you know. Why, I died of poisoning. Who knew that arsenic looked so much like sugar? Ghastly death; if you ever have a choice, I recommend something quicker and less painful. Aunt Vicky had the right idea; a pistol in the mouth couldn't possibly hurt much, it takes less than a second to die from that. Eliza made it look like she fell down the stairs, but I know better."

Melora didn't want to hear what Edward was telling her. She tried to focus on his father, looking so forlornly at his dead son. Vincent, was it? He looked so much like Edward; he couldn't have been over 30 now. How young, to be a father bereaved of all immediate kin. His eyes were an intense color of blue, heavy laden with shadows. Slowly the family room and all its unhappy guests faded into white noise, and Melora's eyes were filled with Vincent until she was a small creature tossed upon the waves of his grief. He seemed to Melora achingly familiar, more than just an inventor of pastry machines and assembly line robots. What was it about him, what was this emotion that was rising in Melora so fast and strong? Like a mouse in a tea-cup, she was forced through the chambers of Vincent's heart while she saw through his eyes the corpse of Edward, human, complete, but dead. Was it love that Melora felt for this man? Yes, it had to be, for it was the same feeling Melora got when she gazed at this man's ultimate creation, the automaton Edward. Vincent _was_ Edward, or Edward was Vincent—yes, Edward was his life, all of his passion and love woven together in interlocking (steel parts—Vincent's heart told her, for the springs and the moving parts; it was modern and expensive but it would last forever, the manufacturers had told him. Forever), in leather and in woven nickel filaments. Edward was completely Vincent, save for his eyes, which were pitch black like his son's.

"Edward, you shall have my heart. You and I shall live together forever, one in one another," Vincent said with Melora's mouth. They were in his workshop, some 50 lonely years later, a withered and liver-spotted hand delicately caressing the cool face of his creation. Melora bent lower, feeling the age of Vincent's body. Edward looked exactly the same as he would one hundred years later, his hair combed, his eyes closed, the life within not yet ready to be born. Melora felt as if she was floating, looking down. She was almost lying on top of Edward now, her body invisible. His face was a perfect white mask, lifelike and statuesque at the same time. It was flattening out, the shadows becoming simpler and simpler, more geometric, and finally they were no more than ink shapes on paper.

Melora opened her mouth and her eyes and gasped for air, each breath tearing out and burning her collapsed lungs. Her body felt incredibly cold. She lay against the floor for some time, focusing all her concentration on breathing deeply and steadily. Eventually her breath slowed and evened. Melora sat up, wincing sharply at the sensation of pins and needles in her legs. How long had she been like that? The windows were dark and rainy; Paula would be coming home soon.

"Was it real?" Melora murmured, reaching down to finger the edge of the thick card-stock. There was...something different about her surroundings, Melora realized. Slowly lifting her head, a vision of white and black fury assaulted her eyes. The studio floor was covered with ink paintings; not a single floorboard could be seen. Not bothering to use her cane, Melora crawled on her hands and knees over the drying art, her eyes wide, unable to focus at first on a single image.

They were like black and white photos; perfect stamps of reality simplified into black and white shapes. And from every winding staircase, every shattered window, every dusty doorframe, and from under every bush, there he was; Edward's eyes staring back at her. They resembled two furious black holes, screaming from the page in anger. In others his face could be clearly seen, turned towards Melora with clearly defined almond eyes, his expression at once happy and sad. Wherever Melora crawled, his gaze followed her, burning her hands and knees as she crushed the paper beneath her. The sobs broke out of her throat in waves; the world came crashing down on Melora's head all over again.

* * *

Edward placed one foot in front of the other. When had he left his obscure little recliner? He could not remember getting up. The hallway was dark before him, though with all the windows his one useless arm kept bumping against he knew there should have been more light than he was seeing. He could hear rain pattering on the glass, but there had been another sound beneath it, a faint little echo that entered his ears, disturbing the suffocating silence that had enshrouded Edward's existence for the last few months. It had been the sound of brush against paper, but in Edward's multitude of tiny brass and tin inner ear pieces, the sound reverberated and became the sound of a deep and endless ocean exhaling on a lonely shore. And somehow when that sound became the sound of a deep and endless ocean on a lonely shore, Edward could feel her two cold white feet crushing the powdery sand, he could see her unkempt loose blond hair straining airborne diamond grains through itself, he could smell the sea on her skin and in her clothes.

It had been so real, and when the vision faded Edward despaired for the emptiness left inside of him, as real and as urgent and as painful as when Melora would first leave him alone for days at a time. Now he searched for that sound, and would endure all the strange discomfort his stiff body gave him if only he could hear that deep and endless ocean while hovering disembodied over her soft fragrant shoulder. So down Edward descended, daring himself to hope for an absolution to the injuries he'd caused in return for his unending and loving servitude in all things.

Finally the light changed in the peripherals of his vision; Edward knew he was near. Something was happening below, something he had to witness to be absolutely sure of. Carefully reaching out a blade, he tapped against the banister leading down to the main floor. Edward remained hidden behind the wall, terrified and exhilarated. But something was going on down there, he could hear someone breathing heavily, something like paper shifting over itself. He would have to see, if only his eyes would cooperate. He would have to strain them very hard to re-align them properly, yes, it hurt but it was necessary if only he could bear it a little longer...there.

Vision returned to Edward gradually in shades of stark black and white, then greys and then in muted colors. It was all very fuzzy, but there was at least a small area of clear focus in the center. Then, to observe carefully what was taking place below, was it possible that Melora had returned? Would he reveal himself to her and throw himself at her mercy, or would he retreat into the darkness should she prove to be healed? Edward could not know, his feelings of desperate love and loneliness at total odds with his fear and shame. Whatever his final act, he would have to make it soon if he wished to spare his protesting eyes, which pulsated in complaint from the sudden shift in focus.

Creeping along the wall as stealthily as he could manage, Edward peered carefully around the corner to look down upon the room that he'd once spent many happy hours with his companion.

* * *

A sound ripped out from Melora's throat as she grabbed a fistful of portraits. It was furious, and she made it again when she tore the paper to pieces. Again she made it, sharper and faster, as she flung the pieces to the side. She was on her knees now, torso held painfully erect without the help of her cane which lay buried somewhere beneath the pile of drawings. Hot tears coursed down Melora's face, but they went unnoticed. Melora was more than the tears that poured from her eyes, she was now the tiny, incredibly inadequate vessel for what felt like a thousand tortured screams fighting to explode her mortal shell and rise into the heavens in agony. What were tears, when by rights no sheaf of paper should withstand ignition in the face of such fury? Frantically Melora shredded through the dozens upon dozens of ink impressions, and there were dozens more to destroy when she collapsed, screaming. Melora's face twisted in a mixture of anger and pain; the wound in her abdomen would allow nothing further without the use of a cane.

* * *

Edward reeled back, terrified, from his hiding place behind the staircase. Knocking his blades against the banister in his panic, he ran blindly through the house away from the scene. She hated him! She wanted him dead, destroyed, she hated him, she hated him, she hated him!

Edward crashed into some anonymous study, stumbling back and forth in his blindness. He was moaning, the sobs clawing out of his parched throat endlessly. Using his one good arm to steady himself, Edward sank into a rotted armchair.

_She hates me!_ The finality of it, the absolute certainty of it, cut Edward's soul to ribbons, slashing at him like an icy wind. How could a machine be created to feel such pain? For it seemed unending, the despair that flowed through him could not flow out of him, all the hurt kept safely stitched within his leather armor. He wanted, needed, desperately to cry. If there was ever a moment in his immortal existence that he needed to still his blades and simply weep, this was surely that moment. Somehow this would all go away if he could just do the thing that every single human can do without a thought; why couldn't it be so easy?

_She hates me! _Edward's scissors were snipping frantically now, hanging to either side of the chair as they were. His legs were twitching spastically, he needed some kind of release before..._before I go down there and–and–and–killhermys—_

"Ooooh..." A final moan escaped Edward's lips; his entire body sagged. His eyeballs rolled up and disengaged in their sockets; blood welled up and poured out down the sides of his face. In his last moments of consciousness, Edward felt a tiny spark of joy: he was finally crying.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Chapter 15!! Woo! I wasn't originally going to post this bit as its own chapter, but I know people are anxious to read what happens next and I saw that I had reached seven pages. So, how is everyone doing? All goes well I hope. Hopefully things are starting to pick up for you in this story. A lot of people asked me if Edward died in the last chapter, some people assumed I had finished the story. Come on guys, I can write a better ending than that! I promised you sex and violence, and sex and violence is what you shall get.

_who do you think you are _

_I see all my increments in monochrome _

_who decides the weeks spin by_

_ balancing the wheel _

_increments in monochrome _

_only us just passing through _

_only us just passing through _

_only love can reach the heart _

_only love can tear apart _

_only love can reach the heart _

_only love can tear apart you_

Collide, "Monochrome".

"He's here."

Paula looked up from her bowl of cereal. Melora sat across the table from her, her cane hooked over the backrest. Cold autumn morning light slanted through the kitchen window, doing little to warm either of them. Paula shivered in her sweater; Melora was staring into the bottom of her tea mug. She had boiled this particular bag for the third time now; tea was a luxury these days after all the medical bills were paid.

"Maybe. The gardens are the weediest I've seen them in a long time, though." Paula responded. Melora's eyes were rimmed red and puffy; she wore a rust-colored patchwork vest and ribbed charcoal gray sweater, her skirts striped and layered for warmth. Paula was glad to see Melora was taking more care with selecting her outfits; if it wasn't a sign that her depression might be lifting, at least it meant she had learned her lesson from last night to wear weather-appropriate clothing. Paula had discovered Melora the night before, collapsed on the walkway before the entrance of the mansion. She was shivering, her knees drawn up to her chest and her hands curled over the back of her head. Paula had rushed to her aide, stripping her of her soaking garments and placing her in front of a roaring fire. Melora had clutched her friend as she swaddled her in towels carefully heated in shallow pans over the stove, crying soundlessly. After giving her a shot of morphine, Paula helped her to the couch where she soon fell asleep.

The next morning had found Melora up early, a look of determination on her face. "He must be hurt, then; why else would he stop tending for the garden? After all, the roof caved in on him too." She said, nursing her tea.

"What are we supposed to do if he is?" Paula asked, "you told me he's not really..."

Melora looked up from her mug, daring at Paula to say it.

"...human?"

"Edward is more human than a lot of people I know. He's just put together differently. And...I have a feeling I have a way to at least try to fix him..." They exchanged glances, Paula raising her eyebrow. She had to get to work, but her curiosity kept her there a moment longer.

"I haven't even begun to explore this place; Vincent must have had a workshop somewhere. Maybe some of his simpler tools still work, or maybe by some miracle the larger ones he must have used to build Edward are still functional." Melora said excitedly.

"And what makes you think that just because you might have the tools, you'll know how to fix him? What if he's missing a limb, or what if some deep internal mechanism has stopped? You're an artist, not an engineer." Paula replied, skeptical.

"Paula..." Melora's voice betrayed a desperation she had been trying to mask, "I can't keep going like this, not knowing if he's ok. I don't care anymore if he doesn't want to see me after letting you inside, I've got to find him and try to right things. I'll deal with the technical difficulties when I get to them. Let me have my dream that maybe things can go back to the way they were before."

"Just be careful, ok? You're on your own for this one. If I don't see you down here by the time I get home tonight, I'm going to come looking."

"I'll do my best." Melora said, already gazing at the staircase through the open door.

Despite Melora's earlier conviction, she now leaned on her cane with some trepidation as she looked up into the shadowy darkness cloaking the upper levels of the house. Part of her wanted to gallop up the stairs, banging her cane against the walls, hoping to scare Edward out of hiding, as if he was a flock of pigeons. But it was only with great effort that Melora lifted her foot from the ground to step onto the first ledge of the staircase.

_Don't be a baby, Melora_. And so she ascended the stairs, taking them slowly and one at a time. When Melora reached the top and turned to the corridor leading to the unexplored part of the house, something strange caught her eye. Looking closer, a cold rush of fear shot down her spine: the walls were deeply scored with heavy, uneven tracks that raced back into the gloom, at just about waist-level. And there weren't just four or five; there were literally hundreds, on either side of the hallway. Edward had been there. Many times. And he had been suffering from some sort of agitation; why else would he be dragging his blades down the walls so much? _I'll find you. I'll find you. Just please let me get there before it's too late_. Melora moved down the hallway as fast as her handicap allowed her, grateful that the occasional airy window allowed for some light. Her thoughts ran single-mindedly along this loop, all doubts as to whether she should be doing this vanished.

Signs of him were everywhere, in fact. Tattered drapes, furniture tipped over, the door frames of some rooms bore the same deep scoring that were on the walls. And there were less noticeable signs: Melora eventually realized that she could faintly smell the scent of oil, as if someone was servicing their motorcycle. After a while, she could see it, too, faint streaks of the black oily stuff on bed sheets and the door-knobs. Once again, Melora was amazed at how big the mansion truly was. Once an entire family had lived here, large enough and rich enough to have a room for almost every purpose. Where would Edward most likely be? She had no way of knowing, so Melora inspected every room indiscriminately. She feared she might become lost, turning inside the twisting and forking hallways, the ante-rooms and outer walkways, the towers and the galleries. One corridor opened to another, every door opened lead to two more. Melora soon began to feel as if she was spiraling around something, never reaching the center. Instinctually, she felt as though she was peeling back the layers of the house to reach the heart. However, she never reached it—she found Edward first.

She would have missed him, too, had it not been for his blessedly pale face shining out of the darkness, catching Melora's eye as she passed by the doorway of some small armchair study. Her heart had leapt into her mouth as she did a double-take; yes, it was him. But there was something very wrong.

Very, very wrong.

Melora knelt down beside the unmoving figure, covering her mouth in horror. "Oh god..." She said, gently touching his cheek, which was turned away from her, the shadows obscuring all but the side of his face. It was like touching a china plate left in the snow. Edward's skin did not yield to her fingers at all. He lay, rather than sat, in an over-stuffed rotting armchair. Edward's head was thrown back, and his entire torso was leaning to one side, threatening to tip over off the back-rest. His long legs and arms were sprawled out; it looked as if he had collapsed there and never recovered. The smell of oil and blood was overpowering; it glittered in the darkness, hinting at more extensive damage than Melora could currently see.

"Edward?" Melora turned her companion's face toward her. Suddenly the full horror of his wounds became visible, and she fell back against the floor in terror. Where his eyes should have been, there were only two messy black eye sockets, weeping blood greased with oil. Melora clutched her stomach as she fought back her dry-heaving. It took her several moments to bring herself to approach Edward's body. What had happened to his eyes; were they even in his head anymore? Her companion did not stir. She shook him gently, willing him to respond, calling his name repeatedly. Nothing happened. He was like a giant doll in her arms.

_What the fuck do I do?_ Melora was beginning to panic. How was she supposed to move him when she could barely walk without her cane? Was there even any hope of saving him? If so, how? And where could she move him to? Sitting back on her heels, Melora tried to form a plan of some sort. She closed her eyes, willing herself to calm down and think rationally. She couldn't allow herself to be overcome by fear or squeamishness, and above all else she couldn't allow herself to believe there was nothing to be done. There was always something.

"Kkk-chh." Melora bolted upright, wincing as her healing abdominals complained. Had Edward made a sound? She leaned down over his mouth, calling his name and waiting, hoping. Nothing happened for a long time. Then an eerie sound emitted from his throat, his mouth remaining shut. It was brief and unintelligible, but it was enough for Melora.

"Hang on love. I'm going to figure something out." She said, as much for herself as for her broken companion.

Melora stood in the middle of a room dominated by vaulted gothic windows and the remnants of a life dedicated to invention. She had, after several hours, found the 'heart' of the mansion. What she had found on the first night of her stay there could not even begin to compare to this. It had required an extraordinary amount of courage and will to tear herself from Edward's rag doll body, but now Melora knew that if there was any hope of repairing him, it lay within this workshop. Vincent had truly been an incredible man, to build all of this, to even conceive of it. Melora briefly wondered if, had Edward been completed before his death, he would have been anything like his creator.

Clearly she could see themes repeated in his constructions: Stationed at many of the conveyor belts were grinning automatons bearing crude versions of Edward's more articulate scissor hands. Melora recognized even a few pieces of hardware belting the more limber machines together. Strangely, though, none of what she was seeing looked conducive to creating a man. As far as she knew, Edward was unique; he would not have been put together on an assembly line designed to create multiples of the same object, which is what most of these machines looked built for.

After carefully examining every machine in the laboratory, Melora sighed in exasperation. She was anxious to get back to Edward, and see him working again. How hard could it be to fix a machine constructed back in the age of steam? Not like building a computer or flying a rocket. Part A would fit into Slot B, and soon they would be washing dishes and gathering wood in the forest together.

Although there was no sign of something specifically suited to her situation, Melora did notice something strange—a single book-case set deeply into a wall close-by. She examined the titles; immediately Melora knew she was onto something. Some titles were more obvious than others, but she guessed that all of them centered around the same thing. Scanning the spines, she read off the list, "The Translated Text of Lie Ze...Cicero's De Re Publica...Discourse on The Antikythera Mechanism...Book of the Composition of Alchemy...The Arabic Works of Jabir ibn Hayyan...The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices...The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt...The Vitruvian Man: DaVinci's Canon of Proportions...Descartes: Systematic Natural Philosophy...Alternating Current: Tesla's Revolution...Descartes: The Description of the Human Body...The Automata of Jaquet-Droz...Written by the Automaton of Maillardet...The Tea-Serving Karakuri Puppets of Japan...Secrets of Conjuring and Magic by Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin..." The list of titles went on and on. The titles struck her at first as being somewhat random and unrelated to each other. However, within each book, Melora found intricate, dizzying diagrams of mechanical devices and descriptions of their function. Some calculated the positions of the planets, some aided stage magicians to perform incredible illusions, others sought to mimic life in the form of flute-playing robots and brass birds who could sing and take seeds from your hand. Most were created centuries before Vincent had even been born, and Melora realized that fixing Edward may not be as simple as she had originally guessed.

However, it was not a book filled with ancient drawings of levers, gears, and clock-parts that finally led Melora to what she sought; it was Descartes' "Systematic Natural Philosophy". Melora had a suspicion of Descartes' philosophy, she disliked Enlightenment ideas of utter rationalism and a totally logic-oriented view of the world. Melora had never heard of Descartes having anything to say about machinery, though, so was surprised to see that when she took the book off the shelf, the entire book case slid back into the wall and revealed a smaller, more densely packed workshop.

Feeling giddy at her discovery, Melora quickly stepped over the threshold to verify if this really was what she was looking for. Instantly Melora was hit with a sense of deja-vu. Shaking her head, she was unable to let the feeling go. It was like the room had been waiting for her; patiently awaiting her arrival for a hundred years, eager to surround the questioning mind and the wounded heart with everything required of it. A series of gothic windows lined a wall overlooking the back of the garden; from it Melora could see a single lonely tower falling to ruin. Before the windows was a large work table strewn with various objects and papers, covered with a century's worth of dust. An easel stood beside the table, and in the middle of the room was another table, bare save for a pair of cracking leather restraints at each end.Melora reverently touched her fingertips to this operating table; trying to imagine Edward being born, coming to life on this table.

Her foot steps echoed dully in the empty room, her skirts hissing over each other. Melora moved very slowly, fearing that too aggressive a move might blow everything to ash. A large iron furnace was imbedded into a wall next to a second door; Melora opened this and found a series of large machines totally unlike what she saw in the main invention room, machines resembling giant complex sewing machines, and iron tubs that looked like death traps. She shivered and closed the door. Walking back to the work-bench, Melora carefully examined the objects she found there. It was a strange mix; Vincent seemed to have some fascination outside of technology. She found personal objects of obvious sentimental value: a small book of poetry, a few postcards from England written in illegible script, and, most eerie of all, what could only have been a man's wedding ring, placed randomly atop a pile of diagrams, as if he'd just removed it to work without getting it soiled. Had he known he would die before ever putting it back on, would the inventor have chosen to keep it on? Melora picked it up, the golden band glowing warmly between her fingers. She lifted her finger to slip into the ring, but suddenly Melora was overcome by a feeling that she was violating something that was not hers to tamper with. Still, she couldn't put the ring down.

Vincent's body was no doubt a stiff brown stain between the sheets of the bed downstairs; a room that Melora never entered except to retrieve a frightened Edward from his hiding place. She could not have an urn to keep Vincent's ashes in, nor a tombstone to visit. Ever since she had lost consciousness on the floor of her studio and experienced a glimpse of Vincent's love and loss over his son, Melora felt strongly within her heart that she loved that man, or at least felt a great deal of respect for him. Maybe it was that they both loved Edward so much, maybe it was that Melora sensed so much of Edward in Vincent. She wanted to match Vincent's seemingly bottomless capacity to love his creation; for it was that love, Melora now believed, that gave Edward the life he had.

It would take another act of such love to bring Edward back. Melora knew she could never wear the inventor's ring, but she pocketed it nevertheless.

Melora's gaze fell atop more of his possessions. Vincent had a passion for insects, apparently. He used them, cast in clear resin blocks, as paperweights, their shiny black, green, blue and gold exoskeletons like jewels in the light. Most of what covered the table-top were diagrams, ones that were obviously torn from books or drawn by Vincent himself. Beside a small hanging resin replica of the human skeleton was a wealth of art supplies—boxes of well-used watercolor cakes, paintbrushes of all sizes, pencils, jars of various sizes for water, charcoal sticks, blending stubs, and erasers were strewn all over the place. A few yellowed candles in their holders—Vincent must have worked late into the night many times here.

And then there were the books. They were large and leather-bound, just like you'd expect them to be. There were four that she could see. "Oh!" Melora snatched her hand away. A shock had passed through her fingers, up her arm, and down her thigh over which the ring rested, upon touching the corner of one bound volume. Sighing in frustration, Melora put down the Descartes book and left the workshop. Her curiosity would have to wait; Edward needed her immediate attention and if she was to nurse him back to health, she would do it in a place that was built for it.

Back in the little armchair study, Edward remained motionless as Melora stepped over the threshold. Melora thought about her options, gripping her cane to stay focused. She could wait for Paula to get home and help her move Edward. She probably should do that; and she would, even if it meant going a little crazy for a few hours. The search for Edward alone had taken most of the day. Knowing that she should be downstairs in case Paula came home early, Melora couldn't bear to leave Edward's side. Even unconscious, having Edward there beside her was everything Melora's soul needed at that moment.

Pulling up a small ottoman, Melora leant onto the armchair. Daring herself to go further, Melora slowly bent her head over one leather-clad arm. Closing her eyes and letting out a sigh, she brushed her cheek back and forth over the textured surface, letting the buckles and grommets hitch roughly against her skin. She thought of nothing, her mind empty and white like a blank sheet of paper. Relief coursed through her. Things would be ok; a little elbow grease and some studying, and Edward would come back to her. And when he did, she would put everything right, and he wouldn't hate her, he'd sleep close to her at night and hold her, he would smile at her jokes and ask her to comb his hair.

Melora glanced up through the curtain that her disheveled blonde hair made. No movement. She sighed again_. Please let Paula come home soon._

When Paula eventually did come home, it was dark and windy outside. She found Melora sitting calmly at the kitchen table, drawing in her sketchbook, a glass of steaming tea beside her small travel set of watercolors.

"This is new." Paula said, hanging up her scarf and coat.

"Yes, it is." Melora answered. Paula looked over her shoulder to see what she was drawing. It didn't make any sense to her, but normally Melora would be much more agitated over something so abstract.

"It doesn't look like anything right now. But it will. I'm finally letting things come through." And somehow, Paula understood. A long day of helping impatient and sullen customers find their movies had made her very tired, her soul shrinking under the weight of their tell-tale glares. Someday soon they would have to talk about finding Melora some way of making money, if they were to continue living together. It worried her, and the rising tension at the high school was making her more and more agitated every day. She was working harder than she had ever worked in her entire life, only to come home to Melora's moodiness and depression. Seeing her there, graphite stick in hand, calmly filling the page before moving onto the next one with patient deliberation, gave Paula hope that somehow things would get better. And then there was the other question at hand.

"So?"

"So." Melora replied. "I'll take you to Edward whenever you're ready; but we have to do it soon. I found him earlier this evening. He's in pretty bad shape; but we have a chance. I discovered the workshop that Edward was built in, it's been left just like it was the last day Vincent was there. I have his books, his equipment, everything we'll need, I think. But I need your help."

Just like that. Paula didn't know what she had expected. Climbing the steep, winding path up to the mansion, she didn't know if she should have expected to see Edward and Melora fixing supper together, or find Melora in pieces all over the wall. A glint caught Paula's eye. Where there had been nothing before, there was now a ring hanging on a fine chain around Melora's neck.

_Please leave a review!_


	16. Chapter 16

A/n: Chapter 16!! Finished this between finals and moving out to my new apartment. Thank you to all my readers for sticking with me! In between chapters I hope you all were checking out the gallery for fanworks: xevv. deviantart. com. I was recently paid a generous comission for an artwork featuring Edward; so far that has been the only way I've profitted from this hobby. I was actually thinking; would people enjoy reading a graphic novel version of How We Quit the Forest? Something along the lines of David Mack's Kabuki series (without all the blatant plagarism; TT Why David whyyyy??) with detailed and artistic layouts and such? It was either that, or maybe something like that but augmented with photostories (I'm currently in the process of collecting ball-jointed-doll versions of my characters)...probably not the entire story, but maybe a select few scenes could be photographed. If you thought your author's fandom couldn't get any crazier, last halloween she won 2nd place costume award for her Edward Scissorhand's costume (she even beat out a man with actual costume peices from the movie, but apparently he wore the same thing every year and his costume annoyed everyone on the dancefloor since it was so unwieldy). If anyone wants pictures of my costume, you can PM me and I'll give you the links to them (hosted on my facebook account--prince, how can you be this much of a fangirl when you're in COLLEGE)

I hope you enjoy this chapter! Things are starting to get interesting I hope.

* * *

It would be late in the evening when Paula lowered Edward's body onto the operating table in the inventor's private laboratory. Melora slid Edward's feet off her shoulders, gasping for breath. They both estimated that the mechanical man contained about seven tea-kettles in his chest, along with the gardening shears attatched to his wrist. He had not stirred at all, not a sound nor a snip to be heard. The twin holes in Edward's head bothered Melora, and she could not bear to leave them in such a state. While Paula rested in a chair nearby, Melora bent over her companion and did her best to wipe away the ghastly wells of oil around his eye sockets.

"Aren't you afraid of doing more damage than repair?" Paula asked, wiping the sweat from her brow.

"Actually, yes." Melora said, her hands hovering over Edward's pale face. It looked like little more than a porcelain mask, the dark eyeholes burning into her and making her spine tingle. "I could fuck up in so many ways I don't even dare count them. I could effectively kill him. I could horribly handicap him in some way. He might hate me forever afterwards."

The two women were silent. Without another word, Melora dipped her bare fingers into the darkness of Edward's eyes. She met nothing but lukewarm oil until her fingertips slid over greased gears and--

Melora yelped suddenly and pulled her hand away.

"What is it?" Paula gripped the armrests.

She sighed, her breath shuddering. "It's ok. I think. I just….his parts are still moving in there. It was like putting my hand in the guts of a sewing machine while pumping the pedal."

"Oh god…" Paula felt a little sick. She already felt as though they were playing with a dead body; it was easy to forget that Edward wasn't filled entirely with blood and organs like everyone else. "Look, Mel, give me something to do. I can't just watch you stick your fingers in someone's eye sockets like you're fishing for marbles, especially now that you've found bits of him that are still chugging away."

"All right. See that book on Descartes on the table? It unlocked the revolving bookcase, so it must be important somehow, more than all the other books Vincent had on automata. See if you can figure out why." Melora said, carefully putting her fingers back in. Paula obeyed and began flipping through the small book.

The short blond was sure not to feel too deeply, not wanting to damage what could be Edward's equivalent of a brain. Searching, she was relieved to feel something smooth and round buried high above Edward's eye socket. As gently as she could, Melora curved her fingers around the stray eyeball and pulled it down to rest in its rightful place, repeating with the other eye. As she did so, she heard a sound like a cable retracting in its socket, and the eye clicked into its place. Wiping her hands, Melora sat down heavily in a nearby chair. Her hands were shaking.

"Well, I think I see something relevant, though it probably wasn't exactly what you were hoping for." Paula said. "From what I can gather, Descartes' whole point is that reason and scientific thought can yield an answer to any of man's questions. He's quite the little atheist. Man's destiny is to take God's place in the replication and perfection of nature. So he claimed that all living things could be reduced to basic mechanical functions."

"Yeah, Descartes is an asshole. Just because he can't prove that the soul exists doesn't mean we're all reduced to moving piles of meat." Melora quipped.

"Our genius inventor didn't seem to think so. I'm willing to bet that he took Descartes to heart and made this part of his philosophy his own when it came to his creations. It gave him permission to even dare to make something like Edward." Paula said, closing the book and slouching in her seat.

"It doesn't add up to me, somehow." Melora murmured. "Vincent couldn't bear the loss of his son…and Edward is so much more than a human shaped lettuce shredder. I know him. He's got the spark of human life in him, somehow. How could a philosophy stating that all things can be reduced to mechanical processes yield something as true to life as Edward?"

"You got me there. Maybe Vincent just believed it generally, like when it came to building machines over-all. But then maybe he had his own philosophy about the soul." Paula said. "How do you know all this stuff about Vincent's private life? Did you find his diary or something?"

"I just know. If Vincent kept a diary, I'm sure he would have kept it here…" Melora said. She had begun to think of the house as having a life of its own, and the visions it gave her had gradually lost their discredibility.

Melora focused her attention once more to the task at hand. "This would be so much easier if Edward could tell us where he's hurt. Before I even think about some way of fixing him, I should probably see if I can find the main injuries first. What do you think?"

"You're asking me for advice?" Paula raised her eyebrows. "I feel like we're way in over our heads as it is. Did you say you know when Edward was built?"

"My guess is sometime in the twenties, just before Vincent died. Why?"

"Ok, Melora, now think. What else did they have in the twenties?"

"Uh…" Melora frowned. "Skyscrapers? Radios…nylon stockings, dropped waists, climbing hemlines, Rudolph Valentino, second generation cars, prohibition, assembly lines and mass-produced goods like makeup and hair products, bobs, cloche hats, vibrators,…..why am I telling you this?"

"You could almost mistake it for today, if you chose to ignore some things. Like, cds, color television, and….?"

"…and?"

"…computers, Mel." Paula said. "By most standards, Edward shouldn't even exist without a computer inside of him somewhere. The best anyone could hope for in the twenties, as far as the average inventor goes, was a programmed robot with no A.I. or free will. Just another appliance with a human face attatched to it. There's no way Edward could tell you he loves you, learn how to read, or dance, or make up new things to do without some kind of really advanced computer system inside him."

Melora crossed her arms over her chest and resisted the urge to become cross. "Ok, so Edward defies temporal logic. But….they had very primitive calculators then. And they had….Tesla. Who Vincent knew about; I saw his name somewhere on that bookshelf. Somehow I think he must be important. Point is, we don't know how Edward works, but he does. Or he did."

"The point _is,_" Paula stressed, "that fixing something when you have no idea how it works is not an M.O. that I would take to something like Edward. What if you fuck it up? Can you really imagine yourself living with that on your conscience?"

"OH my god, Paula. Ok. I see your point. So after I'm done probing him, I'll do everything I can to get some basic idea of how he works." Melora gritted her teeth. "If you're so curious, why don't you start flipping through that pile of books on the work table? I got zapped when I tried to touch them."

"You got 'zapped'?" Paula muttered.

Melora got up and focused on Edward's body stretched out on the operating table. One thing was obvious: there was a giant gaping hole in his upper right arm. It smelled strongly of oily blood, acrid like the inside of an old print lab. It would certainly need to be fixed. But surely Edward didn't pass out from a simple break? What was keeping him under?

"Maybe he needs to be restarted?" Melora asked aloud. Without thinking she touched the unconscious man's face, rubbing her thumb across his lips.

"Whatever the answer is, somehow I think you'll find it here." Paula said suddenly.

"What is it?" Melora eyed the large burgundy-leather bound book Paula held open in her hands.

"His diary."

_August 1893_

…_it is a pity that Tesla isn't wealthy to begin with. Then he could do as he pleases as I do. Oh but he is so full of ideals, it's so trying at times. He cannot keep his aims for humanity a secret, he wants everybody to be content and fair-minded. I respect that in him, but his financeers do not appreciate his anti-capitalist views. Had he put on hold his fantasy of free power for the masses, he would have been the first billionaire employed by Westinghouse. Such a pity. I really do feel as though he is my only friend left in this world, though he has many of his own. I do not care for parties and conventions. I never leave this house now and I'm afraid I have fallen out of touch with the rest of the world; it is very good then that Tesla writes to me, for otherwise I would truly notice how empty this house is._

_November 1893_

…_Tesla has agreed to help me then. I confess I am surprised; why should he help indulge an old man's follies when he could be working on his unified field theory? I think it must be because I am the last person who does not ridicule his efforts for being follies of his own. I believe him when he says he will create wireless technology. If he does not, then I fear all hope is lost for my poor Edward…_

_January 1894_

…_Today I tested the base frame for mobility problems, using the generator of course. It fell over several times; it was a nightmare to make the proper adjustments to the internal gyroscopes. The balance will improve in the conciousness phase of progress, but I want to make things as comfortable for Edward as possible for when he is finally "born". The process is much like cooking; so much planning must go into the simple effort of timing. What shall I concentrate on, fine motor skills? Tissue generation? Logic gates? All must be mastered, all must be swiftly executed at the correct time in the correct sequence…_

_May 1895_

…_The question of internal organs versus a surface membrane has finally been solved, I believe. For months now I have committed mistake after mistake, blunder after blunder, in trying to create one without the other. How I envy the ease with which a woman creates another human being! Then it struck me--I would have to build a womb for Edward to come together in. Nothing less will do. So I created a sort of vat where Edward could rest while his organs and tissues came together. It has been one of the most difficult stages yet--almost every organ required a special machine built to make it. Muscles had to be woven and braided into the frame centimeter by centimeter. Everything is made with the same material: spun silk of the best quality, reinforced with the finest platinum ore. What results is a flexible and very durable material that is soft to the touch. It is permeable, just like skin. Next comes an infusion of electrolyte fluid. Here again I experienced failure after failure. It was only a brilliant accident that led to a solution: amber. It is a natural conductor for electricity, and without it Edward would never see completion. The electrolyte fluid is then pumped to the muscles, while synthetic hemoglobin courses through the body's channels and later to the surface membrane. The surface membrane, which serves as Edward's skin, retains a small amount of the synthetic blood in the nose, cheeks, ears and chin. The effect was ghastly until I altered the synthetic blood to spread itself more or less evenly. Finally I created a casing for each body part in resin which housed the organs and base frame. The surface membrane added shaping and elasticity atop the casing, and was wrapped and woven about one hundred and thirty seven times at the thinnest point…_

Melora paused. She looked at the body on the table, daring herself to imagine Edward as a jointed doll wrapped in electrolyte logged silk. Strangely, the thought did not chill her. Melora stroked her unconscious companion's cheek lightly, wondering at the miracle of his construction.

Flipping through the rest of the diary, Melora skimmed the pages for clues as to how to restart him.

"I keep reading about this wireless grid in the later parts; what does that sound like to you?" Melora turned to Paula.

"Wireless? Like using antennas?" Paula was sifting through the loose papers atop the inventor's desk.

"I guess. It seems like Edward needs it in order to function. And electrolyte fluid."

"Is that what's been leaking out of him? If it is, he probably needs more." Paula said.

"Right. Electrolyte fluid. Which looks like oily blood. I guess I'll have to find his notes for that; all I can get from his diary is that in involved amber somehow." Melora frowned.

"Ok, well, I do have work tomorrow morning, so I'm going to get some sleep. I'll try to help you when I can," said Paula, "tell me if you figure it out."

"What? Um, ok…I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." Melora had not realized how late it was, but part of her felt a little abandoned as Paula left the workshop yawning. She had been so wrapped up in what she had been doing that she didn't notice Paula's fatigue.

Melora worked very late into the night. Most of it consisted of her reading in a grotty armchair, fighting to stay awake, and occaisionaly lifting a piece of equipment and then setting it down. Sometimes she would wander over to the table where Edward lay so silent and still and imagine all the things she would say to him if he were awake. The glittering machine parts anchored to the ceiling, their cables hanging down in ropy loops and coils, became the night sky for her. As the night wore on and turned into day, then one day turned into days, then days turned into a week, Melora felt herself slipping down a steep slope of defeat. She would have slept in the workshop had Paula not insisted that she return to her upstairs bedroom. Melora's dreams returned her to the operating table where she worked tirelessly still until waking , upon which she would realize the futility of the night's work and fight back bitter tears.

Paula was willing to help, but only as far as physical labor went. She had long reached the bottom of the slope, and having lived a life where success came only in brief respites from long heavy periods of disappointment, she was not ready to encourage what she believed to be hopeless fantasies in her delusional roommate. The day she glimpsed Edward's animated form threatening her with its razor bladed appendages grew dimmer and dimmer in her memory, replaced by the unmoving doll he'd since become. This pessimism did nothing to cheer Melora, however silent it was. The deceased inventor had a brilliant mind, but it was hardly organized. Day and night Melora sifted through notes on subjects ranging from stage illusion to art to entymology, and occaisionally would happen upon a packet of papers even remotely connected to Edward's construction. Vincent seemed to make no difference between them, somehow they were all connected. Eventually, in an allergic fit of organization, Melora took to sorting everything into piles. At first she felt as though she was tampering with something sacred, in some deep urge to keep the laboratory in its original state, but it wasn't long before an equally strong utilitarian tendency surfaced and Melora remembered that there was no sense in trying to preserve uselessness in a place like a workshop, or else nothing would ever get done. So, entymology and anything else with a diagram of an insect went into one pile, and anything with cross-hatching excercises or nature studies went into another.

The stage illusion notes were trickier. Some were definetly related to Edward's construction. It wasn't long before Melora saw why. Both the magician and the inventor were concerned with fitting a large amount of moving parts into a small space, and disguising the inner movements as much as possible from the surface. Melora found cross sections of what might have been 

Edward's chest on yellowed paper, revealing an enormous array of wires, gears, pistons, tubing, and what could only have been organ casings. Yet in all the notes she found, Melora saw only blank space where Edward's heart would have been, and there was no clue as to what lay inside Edward's head. This confused Melora, she would have thought that of all the parts most important to creating a man, surely those two would have volumes written on them. But then perhaps it was this importance that warranted their utmost secrecy? Could Vincent have been hiding something, and if so, from who?

The first real breakthrough came one day by accident. Melora closed the diary for the hundredth time, sighing in frustration, and backed up to take a long look at Edward once more. As she backed up, Melora felt herself gently collide with one of the ancient machines lining the far wall. She would have thought nothing of it had her ears not picked up a faint crank of motors and whine of a turbine starting up.

Melora froze. _Impossible. Nothing in here could still be working. _She had told Paula that something might still be operational, but even then Melora had only believed it to be true with the help of extensive refurbishing. How could a gentle tap of Melora's rear end activate such a relic?

Yet there it was, the unmistakeable red glow of an electric light, like the eyes of a beast encased in armor.

"….HOW." Melora couldn't help but ask aloud. She was met with silence.

Examining the device, which stood like a complex loom, Melora found no ports or electric sockets of any kind. It was as if it ran on its own power, independent of an outside generator. _Much like Edward._ Melora thought to herself. A flick of a switch set the loom into action: its racks dipped and swiveled, and several needles shuttled through them. Something was being woven; Melora could see that right away. It was white and almost translucent. Twenty minutes passed and the loom hissed to a halt, and all the racks righted themselves to present Melora with the finished product: a tightly woven bandage that was as soft as….

"Silk," Melora whispered, ghosting her hands across it. The bandage felt slightly sticky to the touch. She was looking at the very fabric of her companion's skin, stretched on the loom and awaiting a cast to be molded to. Melora shivered.

Immediately Melora had it in mind to explore the other machines in greater detail. There were several stationed throughout the workshop; all of them must have played a role in Edward's creation. The notes she could find on them were scattered throughout Vincent's things, leaving Melora frustrated and fighting the urge to get angry. _Save your anger for the suburbanites. Anger will slow you down and tire you out fast here._

Melora decided to try the anteroom. Up until then she had spent little time in it. The great iron basins gave her an uneasy feeling. However, the potential for a new development urged her to ignore her fears, and she once again pushed open the heavy wooden door.

_Do this for Edward. Do it for him. If you can just do this, you will be happy. He will be happy. Bring him back to life, and he'll never leave your side. Things will be as they were._

The basins were more complex than Melora had originally thought. They were massive, but an arrangement of swivels and a surrounding frame revealed that with great effort they could be rotated into almost any position. There were switches hinting that the process could be completed electronically, but Melora couldn't bring herself to find out. She couldn't understand why the vats terrified her so much; there was something extremely ominous about them. They were so big, and they were _filled_ with something--she could hear it sloshing around as she tilted one downwards.

Lining the wall most hidden in shadow was a machine that looked vaguely like an overgrown coffee maker. It was bolted atop a rough-hewn painted cabinet, which revealed gallon jugs and other miscellaneous supplies that Melora promised herself she would go through in more detail later. For now she would examine this smaller machine and try to deduce its purpose.

A large glass vial was immediately obvious. It was imbedded in the guts of the machine, but it was placed in the center. There was a tiny bit of liquid in the bottom; why it had not dried up in a century of disuse was anyone's guess. After a few unsuccessful attempts at starting the machine, Melora pressed the button immediately above the vial and suddenly it came to life with red lights.

Crickacrickacrickacrickacrickacrick--

Melora scampered back across the room as the roof lowered, opened, and three spindly arms descended to jab their prongs into the receiving ports on the machine's column-like head. Immediately pistons began firing, the arms pumping up and down while cables running their length undulated. The noise was almost unbearable, after so many days of silence. Melora made ready to bolt incase the situation grew too much out of her control; she would drag Edward as far as she had to by herself if it meant protecting him from another cave in or some sort of hideous industrial accident.

It would be another twenty minutes before the pistons stopped firing and the tripod retracted into the ceiling. Shaking slightly, Melora made her way back to the once more innocent looking coffee-machine.

"I need a sign for this room that says 'Scary Machines Only.'" Melora muttered, peering deeper into the guts of the device. Even though she knew she shouldn't have been surprised, Melora couldn't keep herself from feeling a current of shock go through her when she realized the vial was filled with a dark fluid. A simple latch mechanism released the vial into Melora's hands; upon sniffing the contents, her heart lifted.

How had Melora found herself in this position?

She had briefly considered eating lunch before continuing her work, but her impatience and need for results had convinced her against it.

Should anyone dare interrupt her work, she would blame hunger and faintness for her compromising situation.

That wouldn't come to pass, however. Melora ensured it with the bolt that added extra security to the revolving bookcase.

Melora felt a bit ridiculous. Why should she feel embarrassed? Surely Edward would not have minded.

Surely not, surely not……

Melora was grateful she had worn overalls that day. She briefly imagined the feel of leather belts and iron buckles pressing into the bare flesh of her thighs beneath a skirt; even she was surprised how fast the heat spread across her face and down her neck.

She had originally wanted to do this job on her feet, but she realized she would need to abandon the cane in order to work with both hands. Standing without the cane was not something she was prepared to endure for more than a few minutes, and so a different method was needed in order to continue her work. The table was too high to use a chair, so Melora firmly locked the bookcase behind her and climbed atop her comatose companion.

How….intimate this contact proved to be. Edward's frame could support Melora's full weight; indeed he was much stronger and more solid than he seemed at first glance. From above his face was a beautiful porcelain mask, scars and all. He looked only to be peacefully asleep. His hips filled the space between Melora's thighs in a way they never had before--in all the times she could remember falling asleep next to him, had they really ever come this close? Had their affection for each other really been so platonic and cerebral?

But that was what Melora had needed then. Even the possibility of sex had been too scary for her. It still was. Edward was safe, somehow she knew. He wasn't going to be able to "perform" like other men could. Did that mean she loved him any less? No.

But here, behind a locked door, with no one looking, Melora was free to explore feelings she had not acknowledged in herself since the day she had set foot in suburbia. And before that, everything was a white haze. Now she hovered over her companion like a lover. She became aware of their bodies, the space between them, the intimacy of the contact. Her breasts were clothed in a ribbed undershirt and restrained by denim straps and buckles; they swayed above Edward with her every breath.

Was it possible for Edward to be a sexual person? This is what Melora wondered as her shaking hands found what she guessed was the best place to start--the garter slung over one shoulder. She loosened the delicate strap out of its buckle and pulled it free.

How could Edward not have some sort of physical desire? Regardless of his artificial nature, he could feel. He possessed all his senses. And he was most definetly not genderless--he was distinctly male, apart from whatever equipment society required for this to be true. And he seemed to show a preference for female companionship, denoting a sexual preference…? Yet Melora realized that there had been very little noticeable sexual tension between them--they had been, up until this point, more like very close friends, even siblings. Had there been any such thing between he and Kim, that suburbanite who had won his love and returned it only too late so many years ago? Did Edward suffer for the physical distance between them?

Down to the row of larger belt buckles encircling what would have been his ribcage. These did not want to yield beneath her fingers at first, and Melora had to clench her teeth and knees and pull as hard as she could to undo each fastening. As the belts fell to the side they exposed soft crinkled leather beneath, which again parted…..

"Oh." Melora couldn't suppress a breathy exclamation. The white skin underneath was like the boiled surface of an egg. First her hand touched it. It was like a thousand soft things she could recall: the scalp of a newborn infant, the inside of a woman's wrist, the softness of an unpeirced earlobe. And it was molded to look like a chest, even having a tinge of pink at the nipples like any normal man. But it seemed so very very thin. Pressing down with her fingers, Melora could feel the cast resin just below the surface. Despite some attention to detail, the torso had obviously not been intended to mimic life. Rather it was only a pale imitation, a permanent substitute for something that should have come later in Edward's designs but only too late.

The biggest proof of this lay in the patches of ruptured skin due to blunt trauma; Melora guessed a beam may have struck her companion in the cave-in. Where the skin ruptured, it was frayed and dry, returning to the normal texture of silk. Something was keeping the healthy skin soft and moisturized.

In the center of Edward's chest was a man made orfice, like a valve. In Melora's research, the inventor had mentioned something about ports in Edward's body that allowed him to supply the automaton with the complex electrolyte fluid. It would make sense, then, that one of the ports should be close to Edward's heart.

_Would Edward feel it if I touched him here? _Melora rubbed her fingers back and forth along the last bit of skin disappearing under the leather belt girding his waist. _How would he react? Would it feel good? Would it hurt? If it felt good, would he let me keep at it? Would I embarrass him? Or would he want me to touch him here?_ Melora imagined Edward's eyes pleading with her to continue, and suddenly she felt very strange.

The bottle of electrolyte fluid had a catheter on the tip, and this Melora inserted into the valve, praying she was not doing something stupid. Pouring the fluid down into the opening, Melora waited for any reaction.

"Edward?"

Closed eyelids fluttered. Melora's heartbeat shot up to roar in her ears.

Then the black fluid beaded between his lips, welled up, and then slid down the side of his mouth to pool on the table. Everything was still.

Melora did not reenter the workshop for a week.

* * *

Please tell me what you think!


End file.
